


Year 2: Transgressions and Transfiguration

by Arinus



Series: Calista Snape [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Complete, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hogwarts Second Year, Legilimency, Legilimens, Mentor Severus Snape, Nightmares, Occlumency, Parent Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Parent Severus Snape, Parent-Child Relationship, Peer Pressure, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Severus Snape Has a Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 01:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 71,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14966084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arinus/pseuds/Arinus
Summary: Calista Snape's second year at Hogwarts should have been easier than the first; but fickle friendships, remedial lessons, and a seeming inability to grasp Transfiguration are the least of her concerns, as she realises that Bellatrix has no intention of stopping her psychic attacks on Calista through the fabric of her nightmares.The only option Severus Snape sees to free Calista from Bellatrix's ministrations is to continue their Occlumency lessons, but each week it becomes clearer that his demanding lessons risk running her ragged, and eroding the tentative trust that has grown between them.Amidst all of this, Severus finally reveals to Lucius and Narcissa the truth about their 'missing' niece, and Calista must face the sister of the woman who nearly destroyed her mind, in the hopes of discovering that there might be something more to 'family', after all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU, because of addition of Severus' OC daughter, but almost completely canon-compliant other than that.  
> All canon characters are in character, including a believable, but still canon-compliant, Severus-as-a-father/Mentor!Severus
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Flashbacks/references to child abuse (physical/magical), dark magic rituals. PTSD. Necessary for plot, no more graphic descriptions than needed. There IS recovery/redemption.

Contrary to what Severus Snape expected of his daughter's nature, she elected to stand by him on Platform 9 ¾ rather than board early or greet her friends. When the last few students began to filter into the train, and Calista still stood stock-still beside him, he pressed a gentle hand between her shoulders.

"The summer holidays are officially over, Calista. Missing the train back to school isn't going to change that, I'm afraid."

"I know." Calista took hold of her school bag. Her trunk and the carrier containing her cat had already been loaded onto the train by porters fifteen minutes prior, but she had yet to join them.

Something in her dejected tone caused Severus pause, but the train was about to leave and took precedence over it for the moment.

"Go on," Severus bade her, propelling her forward a few paces. "I shall see you at school. If something is bothering you, we will discuss it later."

"Nothing's bothering me," Calista said coolly, slinging her bag over her shoulder and dashing toward the train. "You worry too much," she called, an afterthought.

Which may have been true, but it wasn't as if he didn't have good reason to. She had a sociopathic mother that was evidently able to mentally attack her in her sleep, a perpetually defensive demeanour, and a habit of getting herself into trouble.

On top of all that, he was fairly certain that she had lied when she said that nothing was bothering her. He sincerely hoped that whatever it was, it wasn't going to lead to her being harmed or killed. It was probably too much to hope for that it wouldn't land her in detention, but he decided to hope for that as well, despite the odds.

Severus sighed and checked his watch. If he Apparated to the edge of the castle grounds now, he would just barely have enough time to get his lesson plans for the first week of classes in order before the feast began.

It was quite a long walk to the castle, once he had been let in at the grounds gate, but he didn't mind. It was a warm, late-summer afternoon and he allowed himself to mull things over during the course of the journey.

He had thus far managed to keep Calista from meeting anyone who might recognize her as Bellatrix's child, but he feared their days of secrecy were drawing to a close. He was in touch, at least casually, with several of his old colleagues from Voldemort's inner circle.

Most of his old colleagues were spoken to out of necessity only, and rarely at that, and to these people it was easy enough to simply neglect to mention that he was raising a daughter. However, there were others to whom he knew he would have to introduce Calista soon, or risk arousing suspicion as to why he had not done so already.

He worried most about Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. He was their son's godfather, and yet they had never met his daughter. They had learned of her existence of late, but so far he had always managed to have an excuse not to bring Calista when he visited. He was not in such close contact with them since the Dark Lord's downfall that it was strange that he had neglected to mention her before, but now that he had, they wanted to meet her.

This last time, he had gone while she had been spending the week at her friend Emily Yaxley's, a venture which he had initially seen as low-risk, because he had never known Adonus Yaxley very well, although he had been friendly with Adonus' sister, Ferada, in school. As far as he knew, Ferada and Adonus had gone their separate ways shortly before they'd left school.

No, it was definitely the Malfoys he was concerned about. Lucius might not recognize the child, but Narcissa surely would; after all, she was Calista's aunt by blood. If Bellatrix had allowed anyone to meet Calista when she was young, it surely would have been Narcissa.

And what would he do if Narcissa did recognize Calista? Feign ignorance as to who the child's mother was? In the unlikely even that the Wizarding Child Services Division of the Ministry ever did grant custody to a father without disclosing who the child's mother had been, Narcissa knew him too well to believe that he'd taken so many bedmates he honestly couldn't guess which one had carried his child.

In fact, he had always assumed that Narcissa believed Calista Lestrange to be dead, for his summation of her character was such that she would surely have offered to take her sister's child in once she resurfaced from the clutches of the Order of the Phoenix. And yet, when pressed during his most recent visit with the Malfoys, he had disclosed her given name, because he couldn't see a way to escape the question without arousing suspicion.

Neither Lucius or Narcissa had reacted to hearing her name, and it unsettled him almost as much as it might have if they  _had_  reacted. Was he really so fortunate that even Narcissa had not known her niece's name? Had enough time passed since Calista's initial disappearance that they had missed the association? Or were the Malfoys simply having him on, letting him think he had slipped her true identity past them?

If he had been public about gaining custody of her from the beginning, it might have been easier. Of course he would be expected to seek her out and retain custody of her after Bellatrix had been imprisoned, when his suspicions about having fathered her were validated. Now, he had to contend with the years he had kept her secret from Bellatrix's former acquaintances.

Back then, he recalled that he had been so appalled by the wretched state of body and mind that he had found Calista in that he had not dared to share her with anyone but Albus Dumbledore. Aside from his nearly obsessive fear early on that she would never be able to recover from the way Bellatrix had begun raising her, there was the damage Calista could have done to his reputation at the time.

A crucial element to gaining Calista's trust had been confiding in her that he was not supportive of Bellatrix's views, and in turn, the Dark Lord's. If she had somehow revealed that truth to Lucius Malfoy, he very well might have been killed. At the very least, he would be in grave danger should the Dark Lord ever return.

She had come far enough in her recovery that Severus believed she would be able to handle an encounter with some of her mother's old friends, and she was quite likely accomplished enough in Occlumency to successfully hide his secrets; not from the Dark Lord, certainly, or even from Lucius if he chose to dig far enough, but the chances of that were slim. Lucius had no reason to mistrust him, and even less reason to think that a twelve-year-old girl  _would_  be hiding anything through Occlumency.

He would expect Lucius or even Narcissa to perform a cursory glance at the surface of her mind, but he was confident in Calista's ability to resist collapsing to so minor a breach. Truth be told, it was part of the reason that he had made her lessons so much more rigorous. He couldn't keep her secluded from his acquaintances much longer, and it was imperative for both of them that she could keep certain secrets from them.

Perhaps he could simply tell the Malfoys something close to the truth: that he had located Calista, learned that she had been poorly treated by Bellatrix, and decided that she was better off separated from any part of her old life. It could play out in his favour, but it all depended on how close Bellatrix and Narcissa had remained during the final years before the former was imprisoned.

He couldn't see Narcissa condoning outright child abuse, so he had to assume that she had never been aware of the extremity of Bellatrix's parenting methods. Still, he would be left in the precarious situation of needing to explain enough to convince Narcissa that he had been justified in keeping her parentage secret without explaining enough to expose any of Calista's weak points.

He certainly didn't want  _any_  of his old acquaintances to know about the makeshift Dark Mark carved into Calista's back, because he still didn't understand the full implications of it. As for the rest of her traumatic memories, as it stood now they were little more than weapons against her, and what father would arm anyone with that kind of arsenal against his child? Perhaps some day, when she had truly come to terms with her dark past, she would be able to remember without regressing, but she was still young, and only so far down the road towards recovery.

There was the slightest chance that he would be able to avoid discussing Bellatrix altogether, however. Calista truly favoured him far more in looks, though her cheekbones were higher and her face even more angular.

Bellatrix must have had a reason for generally having kept Calista away from other people. Maybe she had seen Severus' mark on her even then and really  _had_  hidden her even from her sister. Narcissa had never really made a secret out of her affection for Severus at school; perhaps Bellatrix had feared that Narcissa would make the connection and spill the proverbial beans.

It was a matter that he had considered at length before, and as he considered it again during his walk across the castle grounds, he found his mind turning in the same circles over and over again. There was no other way to find out, in the end, than to introduce Calista to the Malfoys on his next visit, and hope that he was sufficiently prepared for whichever set of circumstances arose.

**o-o-o-o**

Calista boarded the train far more reluctantly than she believed she'd let on to her father. He had guessed wrong when he'd assumed she'd wanted the summer break to continue. She was actually looking forward to resuming her classes, but before she could she had to face the train ride.

She had come to believe, for a few glorious days in the summer, that she finally had a true friend at Hogwarts. She had hoped that she and Emily would stand together against Olivia and Portia, but those hopes had been dashed nearly as soon as they'd managed to take hold.

She felt like a fool in retrospect; how could she ever have believed that gutless Emily would stand up to the self-declared princess of Slytherin House? She was angry at herself for ever believing that things could change, and disgusted with herself that she knew, even now, she wouldn't tell anyone what kind of neighbourhood Emily lived in.

She wanted to. Ever since Emily had made her offhandedly cruel remark at the end of their sleepover, she had burned with the desire to ruin her, to disclose every humiliating fact about her that she could, and perhaps a few fictions too.

The fact was, Emily had just as much information about Calista that she could as easily betray – and really, Calista knew deep down that it would accomplish nothing to ruin Emily. It wouldn't even really make her feel any better about her own situation, and without even the secret summer friendship with Emily, what did she really have?

"Calista!"

Calista was interrupted from her reverie by the sound of her own name. She recognized Emily's voice, and looked up to see her sometimes-friend waving from the doorway of a compartment several doors down the corridor.

"Hullo, Emily," she replied dully, prepared to walk right past her, but Emily reached out and tugged Calista's elbow. Unable to prevent herself from twitching just a little, she inwardly cursed Emily's apparently newfound habit of grabbing her unexpectedly.

"Come on, we've saved you a space."

Emily guided her into the compartment before relinquishing her hold on Calista's elbow, where she really had no choice but to take a seat or throw a fit. She chose the former initially, but hadn't yet counted the latter out of the running.

"Calista,  _darling_ , you simply must tell me all about your summer," Olivia gushed, and even someone with no Occlumency background could have called her welcoming, girlish tone as fabricated.

"It was hot," Calista replied testily, hoping she discovered Olivia's latest game before she fell victim to its punchline.

"That's not what she meant," Portia clarified, from what Calista considered her perch next to the reigning princess herself.

"Thanks, I didn't get that," Calista snarked, debating the virtues of throwing a fit after all. It had to be a better alternative than manoeuvring through the minefield of a conversation that she knew Olivia was gearing up for.

"My summer was great," Emily supplied, throwing herself into the seat next to Calista. "I met Calista in Diagon Alley for ice cream a few weeks ago."

"Ice cream," Olivia said, disdain dripping from her tone, even as she kept a false smile plastered to her face. "How… quaint.  _I_  was supposed to go to Switzerland, but Mother was kept too busy at the Ministry."

"Oh," Calista said, too-sweetly, deciding to play along in just as transparent a manner as Olivia was displaying, "And I was certain that you'd gone after all, since I only received one letter from you all summer complaining about how dreadfully bored you were."

"Olivia wrote to you?" Emily asked softly, and then pressed her lips together, glancing at the two girls across the compartment.

"Olivia wrote to me  _twice_ ," Portia declared, and it was all Calista could do to keep from laughing in her face. She didn't understand why anyone would want a tagalong like Portia, who practically worshipped Olivia. And as far as Calista was concerned, they deserved each other as friends; Olivia was a conniving brat, and Portia was an idiot.

"Oh, well, I was far too busy to write to  _all_  of my friends," Olivia said offhandedly, but the damage had been done. Calista saw Emily slink down in her seat a few inches, looking defeated and hurt.

"I'm surprised you didn't find the time to write to Emily," Calista said, "Since you told me in your letter that you had hardly anything to keep you busy. I guess things must have really picked up for you after you wrote."

"Yes," Olivia said stiffly, finally flashing a look of contempt in Calista's direction, "Yes, things did pick up quite a bit after I wrote you."

The look actually reassured Calista. She knew how to react when Olivia hated her. It was when the other girl introduced this false premise of friendship between them that Calista was caught off-guard.

"Anyway," Calista muttered, "I'm off. I think I'll go sit somewhere else."

"Nonsense!" Olivia said, half-rising as if to stop Calista from leaving, "We were just catching up. You haven't yet told me how your summer was, and I know it must have been  _awfully_  busy as well, since you never did get around to writing me back."

"Oh, I wasn't really very busy," Calista said, unable to resist the urge to smirk. Really, the set-up had been too easy. "I just didn't feel like writing to you."

Olivia glowered, but to Calista's surprise, she didn't retort. She only replaced her plastic smile and turned to Portia to chat with her instead. Calista frowned to herself, unable to figure out exactly what Olivia's game was. Whatever her reason for wanting to make the appearance of a friendship with Calista, it appeared to very nearly outweigh her pride.

**o-o-o-o**

When Calista arrived in the Great Hall for the Sorting and the feast, she was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime; to openly snub Olivia Avril.

Calista had entered a little late, since she had been trying to locate her father in the press of people in the Entrance Hall. After a brief and fruitless survey of the crowd, she'd gone in anyway.

As she approached the Slytherin table, she saw Olivia waving at her to take an empty seat next to her. And then, as she had resigned herself to taking it, she saw someone else waving to her form further up the table.

"Snapelet! Oi, Little Snapey, come here and sit with us. We want to know what sort of trouble you got into over the summer!"

It was Kimberly Avery. Calista turned deliberately away from Olivia and the other second-years and squeezed herself into a seat between Peter Boyle and Conor Quinn, two of Kimberly's friends that she had met the previous year.

"So did you try it?" Kimberly asked, grinning at her, "The Exploding Spell?"

Calista thought she caught Ethan Briggs shoot Kimberly a glare, but she couldn't be certain.

"Er, no. Not yet."

"That's allright, there's time yet." Kimberly said, looking to the other sixth-years for support. "Any thing else we need to add to her repertoire before she begins her second year?"

If any of Kimberly's friends replied, it was drowned out by the general roar that arose in the Great Hall as the Sorting Hat was carried out.

A rip near the brim of the hat opened suddenly, and the first-years that were lined up a few yards away from it all gasped in surprise. When Calista saw the sixth-years chuckle, she did the same.

" _I'm not a cap you'd put a feather in,_

_And wear in place of pride,_

_But I can tell you what's within_

_Your pretty little mind!_

_I shall take a look inside your head,_

_To see where you belong,_

_I promise there is naught to dread_

_And I shan't take too long!_

_If what I see within is bravery,_

_Courage and succour,_

_Then I shall send you forthwith to_

_The House of Gryffindor!_

_If what I see within is learning,_

_A mind of wit and awe,_

_Then you will find your friends in_

_The House of Ravenclaw!_

_If what I see within is loyalty,_

_Kindness, hard work, and love,_

_Then I'll send you quickly to_

_The House of Hufflepuff!_

_If what I see within is cunning,_

_Pride, drive, and ambition,_

_Then I know you'll fit well in,_

_The House of Slytherin!_

The Great Hall broke into applause, and McGonagall unrolled the parchment with the names of all of the first years on it. She had just begun calling the first few names when Kimberly leaned in and whispered in Calista's ear.

"Listen, Snapelet, I don't know what you said to your dad at the end of last term, but he's been on my side when it comes to Elyse ever since I asked you to talk to him."

"I really didn't say much," Calista whispered back, feeling another surge of pride at the reminder of the false memory she had planted in her own mind for her father to read.

"Well, whatever you said, it worked. Keep it up, and I'll have your back too, when you need it."

"Thanks," Calista muttered, followed promptly by, "Bloody hell!"

"What?" Kimberly called over the roar of the Hufflepuffs, who had just received a new house member.

Calista shook her head distractedly, and found the staff table with her eyes. Just as she suspected, her father had made it to dinner – and hadn't wasted any time in springing a practical test on her.

She hadn't been expecting a test so soon and was caught completely off-guard. She scrambled to assemble a rudimentary defence, all the while trying desperately not to think about the conversation she'd just been having with Kimberly. Of course, as soon as she told herself not to think about it, it was all that she  _could_  think of.

Odd, though. She felt him swipe at her pitiful excuse for a mental barrier, but she didn't feel him picking through any of her surface thoughts once he had breached it. Was he respecting her privacy, or was he simply so good at what he was doing that she couldn't detect him pilfering through her thoughts?

"Ow!" Calista was jarred when Kimberly elbowed her sharply. "Clap," Kimberly hissed, and Calista realised belatedly that Slytherin had just gained a new house member. She clapped along with everyone else, and craned her neck to see who the new addition was.

It was a solid-looking boy who appeared to be a year or two older than Calista rather than a year her junior, with hair in a mousy shade somewhere between blond and brown. He was the first student to be sorted into Slytherin, but they received another similarly built boy with darker hair and a slightly shorter stature a moment later.

Calista felt a surge of irritation as she watched Olivia welcoming the first years in what she personally felt to be far too enthusiastic a manner. Calista could practically see Olivia taking them all under her wing – which was of course, precisely what she had done with Calista in the beginning – and she doubted she'd have any friends among them once Olivia was finished.

Even given the trio of girls that Calista supposed were certain to become Olivia's newest followers, their house was looking decidedly low on new blood until the final two students, Christopher Warrington and Isabella Zabini, were both sorted into Slytherin, rounding out the number of new Slytherins to a respectable eight.

When the roar of applause for all of the newly sorted students had died down, the Headmaster rose.

"I have several announcements to make before we all tuck in to this fine feast. Firstly, as some of you may have heard, Professor Tolland had an unfortunate encounter this summer with a nest of vampires, and has subsequently decided to retire. We all wish him a speedy recovery and a happy retirement, and hope that he will one day return to Hogwarts to pay us a visit. Professor Septimus Foran will be joining us at Hogwarts this year to take over the responsibility for your education in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Please join me in welcoming him to Hogwarts."

There was a polite smattering of applause, and a few flurries of whispers as the students craned their necks to see the staff table. Professor Foran appeared to be a youngish man with a long brown ponytail and a skeletal build. He lifted one hand in a casual wave to the students as they clapped, but neglected to rise as he was introduced.

"Secondly, I have been asked to remind you that the list of objects that are currently not allowed in the corridors of Hogwarts is available outside Caretaker Filch's office. In addition, first years should note that the forest at the edge of the grounds is expressly off-limits to all students. Finally, congratulations are in order for this year's Head Boy and Head Girl, Mr. William Weasley of Gryffindor and Miss Flora Parsimmon of Hufflepuff, respectively."

Several of the Slytherin students greeted this announcement with hisses of contempt and disapproval, but they were drowned out by deafening applause from the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. The Ravenclaw students clapped politely.

"And now – without further pause, let us eat."

**o-o-o-o**

Calista woke to the general commotion of her roommates getting ready for their first day of classes. She could hear a great rustling of papers and books, and sat up to find Emily frantically searching through a stack of papers and books on her bedside table.

"I can't find my green quill," she said, catching Calista's eye, "Have you seen it? The one from that set you gave me at Christmastime? We have History of Magic this morning, and I always write the dates in green."

"No," Calista said, reaching her fists to her face and rubbing sleep from her eyes, "We got our timetables?"

"They were slipped under the door," Portia said, wiping her hand across her nose, "Want me to get you yours?"

"No, don't, I'll –," she began, but Portia had already crossed the room to the area in front of the door, where a single sheet of parchment still occupied space on the floor. Portia flipped it over, and took a great deal of time longer on her return route from the door, her eyes roving over the parchment.

"Give it to me, you nosy twit," Calista said, pushing her blankets off and setting her feet on the floor. She made to snatch the parchment from Portia, but the other girl held it aloft, squinting at it a moment longer.

"How come yours looks different? You have extra classes, or something."

"Let me see," Olivia said bossily, reaching her hand out.

"Or you can give it to me, as it's  _my_  timetable," Calista snapped. Predictably, Portia handed the parchment over to Olivia instead.

"You've got a class on Saturday," Olivia said, wrinkling her delicate nose, "And an extra one on Thursdays – Oh, Calista, I'm sorry." She sounded anything but.

"What?" Calista said, reaching around Portia to take the parchment from Olivia. This time she succeeded in snatching it from the other girl's hands, and scanned it with her eyes.

She was scheduled for a three-hour class on Saturday mornings with her father, referred to on her timetable only as "Elective Study Program". She nearly chuckled at that, because she knew it must refer to her Occlumency lessons, which she had most certainly  _not_  elected to take on Saturday mornings. She supposed it had been written that way in her timetable because Occlumency wasn't officially an offered class at Hogwarts – and that she had been scheduled for it because her father wanted to ensure that she couldn't be assigned a detention in place of her lessons with him this year.

"It's just extra potions with my dad," Calista said, feeling her face heat up. Why was Olivia looking at her with that mingled look of smugness and pity?

"Look at your Thursdays. You've got Remedial Transfiguration."

"What? I do not, I'm in Transfiguration on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, same as you…" Then she trailed off. Olivia was right. She  _did_  have a block on her timetable on Thursdays set aside for "Remedial Transfiguration", in addition to her regular second-year class.

"Well, McGonagall can stuff it," Calista said loudly, crumpling her timetable up and tossing it aside, "I'm not going to show up to her blasted 'remedial' lesson. I don't need extra lessons."

"Are you sure? The snuffbox you transfigured for exams last year still had a tail." Olivia smirked.

"At least I didn't nearly blow up the Potions classroom," Calista shot back, "Weekly."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," Olivia huffed, "There's an obvious solution here. You help me in Potions and I'll help you in Transfiguration."

"Don't tell me – wait. What?"

"I didn't do poorly enough to get remedial lessons, evidently," Olivia smirked, and then hastily let it drop and started speaking again in a rush when Calista's eyes narrowed and her mouth opened, "But I'm not exactly the top student in Snape – er, your dad's – class. You can tutor me in Potions, and I'll help you with McGonagall's class."

Spending extra time with the two-timing Olivia was one of the last things Calista wanted to do, but spending the next six years of school in remedial lessons was the very last thing she wanted, so she resigned herself to the compromise.

"Fine," Calista heard herself say, "It's not like either of us has much of a choice."

**o-o-o-o**

True to her word, Calista skived off her first remedial Transfiguration lesson. She had intended to attend the first lesson, if only to ask Professor McGonagall for permission to study with Olivia instead of actually having to attend future remedial lessons, but as she sidled into the Transfiguration classroom late Thursday afternoon, she glimpsed another student, lounging against the far wall.

It was Marcus Flint, the Quidditch player. As far as Calista could tell, he spent an equal amount of time bashing his head on the Quidditch pitch and trying to get Olivia's attention, neither of which she considered a worthwhile pursuit. Furthermore, he was so obviously (in Calista's eyes) below her academically and intellectually. There was absolutely no way that she would share a remedial class with him if she had any say in the matter.

Marcus caught sight of Calista in the doorway, and grinned sheepishly. "I guess we're in remedial Transfiguration together, aren't we?"

"No," Calista replied, turning smartly on her heel, "We are so not."

She returned to the Slytherin common room as quickly as she could, for fear of running into Professor McGonagall in the corridors. Admittedly, once she had arrived in the common room, she had no idea what she would say if Professor McGonagall sent for her, or asked her later why she hadn't shown up. Maybe she could pretend to be sick.

"Aren't you supposed to be in extra lessons?" Olivia drawled, from a study table across the common room.

"Skived off," Calista announced brazenly, "Saw Marcus Flint in the classroom and figured they must have made a scheduling mistake. There's no way I'm being lumped in with  _him_."

Olivia grinned. "Oh come off it, Calista. He might be as dumb as rocks, but he is kind of cute. And he's great on a broomstick."

Calista lifted her brows, surprised to find herself in a civil conversation with Olivia Avril, of all people. She had forgotten why they'd become friends at the beginning of last year in the first place; she remembered now that at one time, she'd actually enjoyed the back-and-forth conversational banter with Olivia.

"Cute? You really think he's cute?"

"Well, not cute enough for someone like  _me_ , but maybe for you or Portia."

"You're joking, right? I don't think he's  _cute_  at all; I think he's a right troll."

Olivia snorted delicately. "You're one to be picky about looks, 'Little Snape'."

"You miserable hag –"

"Come off it, Calista. Everyone knows that's what those sixth-years call you. I have to admit, I can see their point – you don't have to look  _exactly_  like him, you know."

"What are you talking about?" Calista spat, her face twisted into a scowl. Ah yes, now she remembered why she didn't care much for Olivia.

Olivia rolled her eyes nearly to the back of her blonde head. "You dress all in black robes like him, even at the weekend – you don't seem to wash or brush your hair much, and even when you  _do_ , it looks like you haven't, because it's in that same non-style as your dad's – For Merlin's sake, haven't you noticed? Scowling all the time with your face hidden under your hair, you look just like a smaller version of him all the time."

"I… I do not," Calista said, even though she wasn't really sure if it was true or not, or even if she'd consider it necessarily a bad thing. It had never really occurred to her to give a rat's rear about her appearance. She'd always assumed there wasn't much she could do with it, so why bother trying?

"You totally do," Olivia said, rising from her seat now that Calista didn't look ready to spit venom, "It's fine for him to look like that – he's a man, and a professor, and, well, frankly, he's old. But you're a  _girl_ , and you're nearly a teenager, and it's about time you looked halfway presentable, don't you think?"

Calista scowled, and then remembered that Olivia had accused her of scowling behind her hair all the time, and neutralised her expression. "I don't care," she said, deceptively off-hand. "I don't care what I look like."

"That much is obvious," Olivia retorted, but her expression was more pensive than vindictive. "Come here a minute, will you?"

"What? Why? What are you going to do to me?" Calista demanded, as Olivia fingered her wand.

"Help you, if I can. Maybe we can do something with that hair, at least."

"Why should I let you do anything to my hair?"

Olivia laughed. "Honestly, what have you got to lose? Stop being a prat and come here."

Calista stepped closer to Olivia, but put her hand in her pocket to grip her own wand tightly. "If you hex me or something, I'll turn your bogeys into bats and have them attack you."

Olivia stepped in close, the exhale of her derisive laugh fluttering against Calista's neck. "You do that, and I'll turn you into a bat yourself. Hold still."

Calista tensed, half-expecting Olivia to hex her, or kick or, or pull her hair, or  _something_. She did feel a little tug on her hair, and then Olivia muttered a few incantations, pausing here and there to survey her results so far. After a moment, she stepped back.

"Wait right here. Don't go anywhere or look at yourself yet." She was gone before Calista could ask her any questions, dashing down the short corridor to their dormitory. When she emerged, she was holding a tiny bottle, a hairbrush and something shiny and green in her fist.

"What's in the bottle?" Calista asked suspiciously.

"Verity Lawlor's Vivacious Volume Leave-in Conditioner. It's from –"

"A posh shop in London," Calista said in unison with Olivia, who flashed a snide smile.

"Yes, it is. Mother has a contact; she gets an excellent bargain on it. Hold still again…"

Calista's hair flopped down over her face under Olivia's ministrations, and then was carefully brushed back and then parted over her left eyebrow. One of Olivia's incantations must have detangled her hair, because Calista admittedly hadn't brushed it that day, yet Olivia's hairbrush didn't hit any snags. She felt a tiny pinch near her temple, and then cold metal.

Olivia stepped back and surveyed her work. "You definitely need something more," she confided, "Maybe some eye makeup, or a Shrinking Spell on that nose of yours. Still, put on a decent pair of dress robes with some colour in them, and there'd be a marked improvement. Go look."

Still eyeing Olivia warily as she strode past her, Calista went into the lavatory off the common room and braced herself. She didn't like to look in the mirror, because she was always disgusted by what she saw.

Exhaling with the air of someone having delayed the inevitable as long as they possibly can, Calista lifted her face to look into the glass.

Well. That was certainly different. Calista turned her face this way and that. When she caught her nose in profile, she grimaced. Still, overall it was an improvement. Olivia had reduced the length of her hair drastically. It just barely grazed her shoulders now, but it no longer looked tangled and oily. It was shiny and thick-looking, and even moved a little this way and that when she turned her head. Olivia had parted her hair on the left, and clipped that side back with a small, flat green clip.

"What do you think? It won't stay looking like that unless you keep it up every day," Olivia said as she strode into the lavatory behind Calista. "You'll need to get some of that potion, and for Merlin's sake, brush it every day."

"It's… different," Calista said uncertainly.

Olivia huffed. "Of course it is. You look a little bit like a normal human being now instead of a – well, instead of like a smaller version of your father. I still maintain you've got a long way to go, of course. Oh, and you can keep that hair clip now that you've used it. You're welcome, by the way."

"Yeah. Thanks." Calista deadpanned, the word tasting funny in her mouth.

"Of course, you're not going to get away with skiving off McGonagall's class, no matter how good your hair looks."


	2. Chapter 2

Severus stared down blankly at the student's paper he was meant to be correcting for almost ten minutes before he realised that he hadn't read a word of it. He glanced at the student's name in the top corner, assessed the length of the write-up, and scrawled a letter in the corner: P for Poor.

He had a policy of grading the fifth years' assignments on the O.W.L. scale, and given how little this particular student seemed to have retained from the prior year so far, Severus thought he was probably being generous.

He set his quill down with rather more force than was necessary and allowed his scowl to deepen. Less than a week into the term, and he was already in a foul mood.

He had applied, yet again, for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position over the summer holiday, and once again, he had been passed over. Adding insult to injury, Septimus Foran, who had been assigned to the position, was at least five years his junior, so Severus found it hard to believe that he had really been judged fairly in experience.

Perhaps darkening Severus' opinion of Foran even more was the fact that the students absolutely adored the new professor. He was in his mid-twenties, and spoke more like his students than his fellow professors, and the majority of the female students were smitten with his looks and his air of youthful rebellion.

As if being passed over for the job he had aspired to practically his whole life by a candidate he considered inferior weren't bad enough, he had already been approached by Minerva McGonagall because Calista hadn't shown up for one of her lessons.

_As if I actually have any control over what she does,_  he had thought sarcastically to himself, reflecting on his vain hopes on the first day of term that Calista wouldn't land herself in detention again this year.

All right, in fairness, he had known that she would, he had just expected it to take a bit longer than six days. When he had wearily suggested that Minerva handled Calista's discipline in the same manner he would any other student, Minerva had snapped at him that she couldn't, because the Saturdays that any other student would spend serving a detention were occupied by extra lessons with  _him_.

Finally, completing the triumvirate events that had utterly ruined his first week back at Hogwarts, two of his Hufflepuff first-years had managed to accidentally ignite what should have been non-flammable materials and caused burn marks on one of the tables in his classroom that, so far, he had been unable to magic away.

Allowing himself only moments in which to recount his terrible week, Severus rubbed his temples and then picked up his marking-quill again, setting his attention once more to his students' papers.

His conscience had him re-reading the student's essay that he had only skimmed and, after careful consideration, he crossed off the 'P' he had scrawled and printed a clear, dark 'D' on it instead. It was shaping up to be a formidable term, not least of all for himself.

**o-o-o-o**

By Friday afternoon, Calista thought she had prepared herself for McGonagall's impending rage. She was wrong.

McGonagall was in the corridor as Calista left her last class for the week, or what should have been it, had her father not assigned her to his Saturday lessons. She was laughing at Olivia's impression of Professor Binns, when the sight of the Transfiguration professor standing outside the door of the classroom stopped her cold.

In less than a glance, Calista knew she was in trouble. She had seen Professor McGonagall angry plenty of times, more than a few of them at her. But now? Calista could swear her ears were actually emitting steam.

"Miss Snape," the professor's nostrils flared, her tone clipped. "I trust you can spare a few moments from your busy social life to speak with me in my office?"

"Oh, er, right now?" Calista stammered, glancing towards her classmates to see if they were watching. Some of the students had dissipated, but several remained, eyes glued to the interaction between student and professor, Olivia and Portia at the forefront of the group.

"Since Thursday afternoon was evidently a bad time for you, I'll have to insist that, yes, we have this conversation right now. We can either have it right here in the corridor, or we can move it to my office as I've suggested. It's entirely up to you."

As she spoke, Calista had to give her credit. She could see that the professor was making an effort not to shout her words to the whole crowd of students. The effort failed, but it was still a decent gesture, she supposed.

It didn't make her feel any less like disappearing into thin air, however. Calista set her jaw and ducked her head, nodding stiffly to McGonagall, and then the pair set off in the direction of the professor's office, McGonagall striding ahead and Calista struggling to keep up while pretending not to hear her classmates giggling and whispering behind her back.

All too soon, they were facing each other in McGonagall's office, which now seemed impossibly claustrophobic to Calista.

"I don't know what reason you had for not attending my class," Professor McGonagall said, closing her office door firmly before turning her gaze fully to Calista's face, "I do know that you weren't ill or injured, because when you failed to show up, the first place I checked was the Hospital Wing."

The professor met Calista's gaze, her lips pressed into a tight line. When Calista didn't reply right away, McGonagall spoke again.

"Quite frankly, you're the last student I'd expect this from. I've spoken to your other professors, and they all tell me what a diligent and inquisitive student you are, and yet I haven't seen that in my classroom since about a month after you first set foot in it. All this time, I've attributed it to difficulty with the subject matter, and then you insult my judgement by not even bothering to show up to extra lessons so I can attempt to help you grasp it better."

A response came quick to Calista's lips, but she stopped it at the last second. She wanted to point out that when she  _had_  begun making progress in lessons, the professor had unfairly accused her of cheating, but she doubted anything she said would change McGonagall's mind about her. As far as Calista could see, the professor just didn't like her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Calista's silence didn't sit well with McGonagall after all, though.

"This would be a good time for you to explain yourself, Miss Snape," she snapped impatiently. "Perhaps you think that you can pick and choose which classes you attend because your father is a professor here, but let me assure you that you cannot lay claim to any such luxury, nor will it keep me from assigning you three detentions for every one of my classes that you fail to attend."

"When have I  _ever_  tried to hide behind my dad being a professor?" Calista demanded hotly, able but not quite willing to hold her tongue, "He's given me more detentions than anyone else, and if you think he's going easy on me then I must have imagined scraping eyeball slime and salamander guts out from under my fingernails, oh, half a dozen times last year."

McGonagall opened her mouth, her expression faltering, but Calista decided she'd already gotten herself in trouble by arguing with her professor; and there was no point in holding her words in anymore.

" _And_  you know what the other thing I've never done is?" she continued, her gaze shooting upward to meet the professor's eyes, "I've never cheated in your class, I swear I haven't, and if you don't believe me you can borrow some Veritaserum from my dad."

McGonagall's expression was briefly unreadable. "I'm hardly about to resort to using illegal potions on a student," she began, "But if you didn't cheat, why didn't you tell me so before?"

"I  _tried_ ," Calista said, scowling, "You didn't believe me. And anyway, it didn't seem to matter. I'm not allowed to look at an example of whatever I'm trying to transfigure an object into for the exams, and that's the only way I can make the incantation work. If I couldn't pass the exam either way, did it really matter why?"

"If that's truly the case, Miss Snape, then I can't fathom why you didn't come to remedial lessons and explain this to me there, so I could help you."

"I guess I don't see the point," Calista said baldly, "I go to every regular class and listen to everything you say, and I've read the whole textbook three times and I still can't do it. Maybe I just can't transfigure anything properly, ever."

"I see," McGonagall said, eyes narrowing. "And how have you progressed since your second and third time through the book?"

"I've only gotten  _worse_  at it, if that's possible," Calista mumbled, "I'm telling you, I just can't do it. And I don't say that easily, about anything, but I swear I've tried so hard. I  _hate_  being the worst student in the class, and the only thing I can think of that would be worse is being the worst student in a  _remedial_  class."

"I'm hardly surprised that reading ahead of your ability is only confusing you more," the professor said, her gaze softening somewhat, even though her tone was still firm. "There's a reason the lessons are in the order they are, and you shouldn't move on if you haven't grasped the prior lessons. As for being unable to  _ever_  transfigure anything, well…"

McGonagall smiled then, completely catching Calista by surprise.

"The only students I can't teach are the ones who don't want to learn. If you're not one of those students, then I can help you. You'll attend remedial lessons as scheduled on Thursday afternoons, and if you're willing to work at it, I wouldn't be surprised if you no longer need them by the winter holidays."

Calista blinked, and then surprised herself even further by responding appropriately for once in her life. "I don't feel much like I'll ever catch up with the rest of the class," she admitted, "But I'll keep trying, Professor. I… I'm sorry I skived off yesterday. It won't happen again."

"It had better not," Professor McGonagall said, in a tone that brooked no argument, "Or I will follow through on those detentions. In the meantime, you're free to go."

Calista nodded. "Thanks," she murmured, and slunk towards the door. As she turned the knob, McGonagall called a parting sentiment to her.

"I'd like to see the same student in my classes that all of your other professors are reporting. I have a feeling I'd quite like her."

**o-o-o-o**

On Saturday, Calista hadn't even reached her father's office before her Occlumency lesson began. She was eating breakfast when she felt a familiar prickling in her mind that told her someone was trying to get in. She cast a look at the staff table and scowled at the long-haired figure that sat almost halfway down it.

Severus, for his part, didn't even look at Calista, nor did he withdraw his presence from her mind. Instead, she had to concentrate so hard on keeping her thoughts hidden that she no longer even tasted what she was eating. The occasional glare across the Great Hall at her father was, as usual, ineffectual.

At nine, when her lessons were set to begin, she placed her utensils down on the table and glanced pointedly towards the staff table again, but Severus was already gone. Annoyed that she hadn't noticed him leaving, yet still able to feel his presence in her mind, she stalked along the familiar path to his dungeon office, where he waited for her behind his desk.

"You're late," Severus said, glancing up at a blank wall that didn't even hold a clock.

"No I'm not," Calista replied, "You were early. Since I wasn't even done  _eating_ when you started testing me, I figured I at least had the right to finish breakfast before moving the lesson here."

"That was an example," he said, "of what your lessons are going to be like from now on. I'm going to train you to multitask while fighting an intrusion. We'll start small, guarding yourself while otherwise engaged in simple activities, like eating or walking."

Severus didn't even have to glance at the scowl dawning on his daughter's features to know how to continue.

"I think you've shown me that you're capable of progressing to this level of Occlumency now."

Pride at the compliment warred with her earlier irritation, and she settled for a neutral expression. "Okay. I'm not hungry anymore, though, so I guess we can't try that anymore today."

Severus smirked. "Nice try. We'll go for a walk, then. It's warm outside; you won't even need your cloak."

Calista, suspicious after his earlier test during breakfast, kept herself on high alert as they walked to the entrance hall, but they had gone outside and a respectable distance from the castle before she felt him pry at her outermost mental barriers.

She couldn't say exactly how, but she knew that he was passing through them with an alarming speed. She stopped walking and closed her eyes, concentrating on pushing him back out of her mind.

"Keep walking," he reminded her, and she wasn't even sure if he had spoken aloud or had spoken the words in her mind. Either way, she stepped forward once, twice, and then stopped again, this time trying to draw strength to her defences.

"Walk," he reminded her again, and she felt his hand between her shoulder blades, gently prodding her forward. She took a few steps and then stumbled before remembering that her eyes were still closed. She opened them in time to see bright green grass hurtling towards her face, but a hand at her elbow steadied her.

"It's usually a lot easier to walk with your eyes open," he couldn't quite keep the mirth out of his voice, and she couldn't quite keep a neutral expression on her face as she glanced up at him, irritation showing in her eyes and a tiny crease in her forehead.

"Is anyone really going to take me for a walk while they try to invade my mind?" she queried, pausing yet again, and feeling him slip further into her mind as she preoccupied herself with arguing.

_Probably not_ , his voice echoed in her head,  _But they might catch you when you're mid-flight on a broomstick, or halfway through Apparating. Or, perhaps, you'll be questioned and will need to carry on a convincing conversation with a Legilimens._

It was the gruesome image that his words conjured in her mind at the mention of being mentally invaded while Apparating that convinced her to take up her pace again, redoubling her efforts. She had heard enough tales, mostly from Kimberly Avery and her friends, about what happened to someone that was somehow distracted mid-Apparition. Definitely not something she wanted to experience first-hand. "It will never happen while I'm on a broomstick," she muttered anyway, "Since I'm never going to fly on one."

With an effort that actually made her head ache, Calista mentally pushed against his intrusion, attempting to simultaneously push him further towards the surface of her mind, and to strengthen the barriers that lay beyond where his influence lingered.

She felt him recede some, and was proud of her efforts until she looked down to see that her feet had stopped moving again.

_This is really difficult._ She hadn't even fully formed her thought when she felt his mental reply:  _Yes, it is. When you finally master it though, it will open the door for Occlumency very wide for you. Your skills will always be severely limited until you can block an intrusion without outwardly appearing even to have noticed it._

After several more false starts, Severus slowed his own steps, allowing Calista to choose a slower pace that suited her. For the first hour or so, she kept stopping, even closing her eyes sometimes, and each time he gently prodded her on, both physically and mentally. When she managed an uninterrupted walk, albeit at a snail's pace, for fifty paces without him breaching her second set of mental barriers, he pushed a little harder.

Once again, she stopped, but this time he weakened his inward attack on her slightly. Snug between her first and second protective barriers, Severus could sense her growing seriously discouraged, and that wasn't his intention. He waited for her to resume her slow walk, and applied just enough mental pressure for her to struggle with keeping him from descending further without collapsing under the effort.

By the time their lesson ended at noon, she had matched her earlier fifty-pace streak, and then doubled it. Still, he couldn't approach her with the same level of concentration and force that he normally did during a sit-down lesson in his office without causing her to stop walking, close her eyes, or completely fold her defences.

All in all, she hadn't progressed quite as well as he'd hoped, but the thought made him wonder, not for the first time, if he expected too much of her abilities simply because she was his daughter. She was remarkably outperforming anything he could reasonably expect of a twelve-year-old; just not everything he had come to expect of  _her_.

Was he pushing her into this level of training too soon because of his own arrogance, or was she truly ready? He couldn't say for certain, but he vowed inwardly to let Calista set the pace of the next few lessons, lest he discourage her and cause her to regress.

Fear for her safety urged him to push her to her limits during lessons, but he had to remind himself that he still wasn't quite sure how far her limits stretched, and if he threw her beyond them, she might feel too overwhelmed to truly take anything more from his lessons.

After he had released Calista for the afternoon, he gave it some thought, and he knew that the only way he could ever truly gauge her limits was to push at them until she broke, and that was something that he couldn't condone subjecting her to.

He knew he was quite possibly the only person Calista truly trusted, and forcing himself into her deepest secrets and private thoughts would shatter that trust as completely as anything Bellatrix could ever have done to the girl.

**o-o-o-o**

After being released from her first Occlumency lesson of the term, Calista considered joining her classmates where they undoubtedly were gathered in the stands of the Quidditch pitch, watching tryouts.

Deciding that navigating the manipulative twists and turns of a conversation with Olivia was more than her Occlumency-exhausted mind could handle, she headed back into the castle instead.

She briefly tried reading her Transfiguration notes from last year, but since they didn't make any more sense to her now than they had at the time, she soon abandoned that pursuit and wandered to the library instead.

Save for a single third-year Ravenclaw barely visible behind a stack of books, she was the only student who was willing to spend a Saturday afternoon so close to the beginning of term in the library, which suited Calista just fine. Her presence there seemed to set the librarian on edge though, because Madam Pince didn't take her eyes off Calista for the first ten minutes of her visit.

Even after selecting a book from the history section to peruse and settling down at a study table didn't seem to ease the librarian's nerves, and Calista could practically feel the woman's eyes boring into her forehead from across the room.

She ignored the prickly feeling of being watched for as long as she could, before finally resigning herself to simply checking out the book to bring back to the common room. If Madam Pince was apprehensive about a student spending the second Saturday of term in the library, it was nothing compared to her obvious unease at lending the book out.

The book was obviously quite new, its spine still stiff and the edges of the pages still bright white, and the librarian stroked it reverently before examining it closely in front of Calista, as if to demonstrate to the girl that she knew exactly what condition the book was leaving her library in, and then she glared meaningfully at Calista, a warning not to return it in any shape that was less than perfect.

"I'm always careful with library books," Calista reminded her sourly, and the truth of it didn't make her declaration any less awkward as it bounced and echoed around the otherwise silent room.

"And now would be a terrible time to break that good habit," Madam Pince declared nasally, "So it better return within two weeks' time in exactly the same pristine shape."

Calista eventually made a safe exit with the book held in the crook of her elbow, but by the time she had reached the common room, it had begun filling up with other students.

Evidently, Quidditch tryouts had ended, and Calista cursed her luck. She'd hoped to be able to curl up in the common room with the book, perhaps even before the fire, but it looked like she'd be relegated to her dorm room now, and even that would only be quiet for as long as Olivia was occupied by flirting with the new Quidditch team members, or whatever it was that had her giggling at an impossible decibel level. She decided to take the book to her dormitory room, instead.

She had barely settled in her bed with the book on her lap when the door to the girls' dorm opened. Emily entered, and offered Calista a small smile.

"I thought I saw you come in here," she said, "I thought maybe we could play a game or two of Gobstones."

"Oh," Calista said, "Are you sure it's okay? Olivia isn't watching, is she?"

She had meant to be sarcastic, but Emily had either failed to pick up on it, or had chosen to ignore it.

"No, I reckon she'll be occupied for another hour at least. She's flirting with Marcus Flint again, and you know how  _that_  goes."

"I try not to notice," Calista answered, flipping past the title page and table of contents, "And I think I've had enough of Gobstones over the summer to last me, oh, forever."

Emily looked wounded, and Calista met her gaze ruthlessly.

"Oh… I guess we did play a lot. I thought you liked to, though." Emily glanced towards the door and lowered her voice. "We could have done something else…"

Calista followed Emily's glance and then met the other girl's eyes again, in a ruthlessly direct stare.

"Well, I don't want to start a game and then have to abandon it partway through, because you're afraid Princess Slytherin is going to walk through the door and – and, I don't know, revoke your privileges of sitting next to her at dinner and doing her homework for her. It's not worth the setup to play half a round."

Emily's face drained of colour, and then flushed bright red.

"Calista, come on. That's not fair, you know it isn't."

"Yeah, whatever. Look, I just don't feel like playing right now, okay?"

Emily bit her lip, and slowly turned away. "Fine. It was just an idea. Forget I ever said anything, okay? We don't have to play ever again."

Calista wasn't sure if she should snappishly agree, or give in to the half-friendship that she knew was all Emily could offer her. She settled instead for saying nothing, and looking pointedly down at the text in her lap.

After a few moments, Emily took the hint and left, and Calista continued reading. It wasn't until she had finished the entire first chapter that she realised she had no idea what she'd been reading about, and would have to start over again.


	3. Chapter 3

Three weeks into remedial Transfiguration lessons, and Calista was ready to declare herself a Squib and go home. At first, she had been bolstered by McGonagall's confidence that she'd be caught up with the rest of the class by Christmas, but at the end of her third week still trying to transform a pencil into a ruler and having nothing to show for it, she was beginning to seriously question her professor's judgement and her own ability.

Staring at a semi-flattened pencil for the better part of two hours wasn't even the worst part of remedial lessons. At the beginning of her remedial classes, she'd been several lessons ahead of Marcus Flint, who had still been learning to change a match into a needle and back. Even Marcus, however thick Calista had always assumed he was, appeared to be a more promising Transfiguration student than she was, and she even had Olivia and her father to help her out between classes.

By his fourth lesson (her third, thanks to skiving off the first lesson), he had caught up to Calista. Seeing his success should have driven her to try harder, but all it did was frustrate her. Marcus couldn't even hold up his end of a conversation without making himself look like an idiot, as far as Calista could tell. Why, then, was even he more adept at Transfiguration than she was?

Staring morosely at her stubborn pencil for the fifth week in a row, Calista wasn't even hearing McGonagall's advice anymore. What could the professor have to say that hadn't already been drilled into Calista by the textbook, her father, Olivia, even McGonagall herself?

"Try this, then," McGonagall said, evidently exasperated, "Close your eyes, and when you wave your wand, just  _visualise_ a ruler."

As if she hadn't tried that a thousand times before. Calista squeezed her eyelids shut and slashed at the air with her wand. She didn't even need to open her eyes to know that the spell had failed.

"Try a softer motion," McGonagall suggested, and then a clatter and a joyful shout rent the air in the classroom.

"I've done it, Mc—Professor," Marcus said, and Calista lifted her chin to peer across the room. Sure enough, a ruler sat on the table in front of him.

"Oh, excellent, Mr. Flint. See if you can change it back, now."

Marcus flicked his wrist, and Calista heard another little clatter as the ruler lifted itself off the desk a few inches and then came back down. It was, as far as she could tell, still a ruler.

"Hang on," Marcus muttered, squinting and readying his arm for another go, "I must've messed that up, somehow –"

The ruler quivered again, and grew a rubber on the end.

Mercifully, McGonagall left her post over Calista's shoulder to help Marcus, then. Calista gave her own work a few more half-hearted attempts, but Marcus' success evidently wasn't catching.

By then, Calista's frustration had grown so much that she wasn't even trying anymore. She waved her wand dutifully whenever McGonagall looked in her direction, but she was really just trying to run out the clock.

Another clatter from across the classroom and then McGonagall's voice: "That's better, Mr. Flint. Practise it back and forth a few times, and next week you can move on to transfiguring mice.

_Unbelievable_ , Calista thought, angrily whipping her wand back and forth ineffectually and glaring at the strange pencil-ruler hybrid in front of her as though the force of her look would cause it to obey and change,  _Marcus Flint is now officially smarter than I am._

Finally, mercifully, the class period was up. Calista shoved her belongings haphazardly into her schoolbag, desperate to leave before McGonagall had a chance to say anything else to her. In her haste, she collided heavily with Marcus in the doorway.

"Uhf," was all she managed at first, as she fought with her heavy schoolbag for balance. "All right, Calista?" Marcus asked, recovering from their collision much more readily than the slighter girl, and grasping her elbow to steady her.

"Yes – thanks – sorry," she managed, annoyed with herself. So much for making a speedy exit. She glanced over her shoulder at McGonagall, but the professor was gathering some papers from the desk at the front of the classroom. Good, she was occupied – the last thing Calista wanted was another lecture about the way she held her wand, or her method of visualizing the spell, or whatever.

It took her a few seconds to realize that Marcus was still holding on to her elbow. She met his gaze, and he offered her a smile that was surprisingly friendly. Calista thought it made him look almost likeable.

"You know, if you'd like, I can try to help you with that spell. I couldn't get it for a long time, either."

"Oh. Er, that's o-" Calista paused. Really, what could it hurt? She realized she wasn't any closer to achieving the damn spell than she had been months ago, when the rest of her class had first been learning it. The point at which she needed to swallow her pride had long since passed.

"Yeah, actually. If you don't mind. Maybe it would help."

"Excellent," Marcus replied, squeezing her elbow slightly and then releasing his hold, "Next time I see you in the common room, then?"

"Okay. I – thanks. It's… I don't know why it's so hard for me to get this stupid spell." Calista hunched her shoulders and exited the classroom, still feeling defensive about her progress in remedial lessons.

Marcus followed her out of the classroom and down the hall, pulling up beside her after a few paces.

"Yeah, I understand, believe me. I'm in remedial for three classes this year. If I'm not caught up by Christmas, I might get thrown off the Quidditch team."

A smirk found its way automatically to Calista's lips, even though she knew in the back of her mind that she wasn't really in a position to feel superior.

"Actually, maybe we could help each other," Marcus glanced at Calista, "I'm doing really poorly in Potions. I reckon Snape – er, sorry, your dad – I reckon he'll have my head soon if I don't pull it together."

"So you want my help with Potions in exchange for you helping me with Transfiguration? Aren't you embarrassed to be asking a second-year for help with your classes?" she asked bluntly as they climbed a staircase in tandem.

Marcus grinned sheepishly. "Well, a bit, yeah," he admitted, "But I'm right desperate at this point. Besides, Conor told me at Quidditch practise that you know loads of potions already that he learned in fourth year."

"Oh," Calista said, mollified, "Well, I guess I can try to help you a bit. It's only fair, right?"

"Yeah, sure. Listen, this is my next class. See you 'round, Calista." Marcus indicated and then entered the Charms classroom on the right.

"Yeah."

**o-o-o-o**

Saturday mornings, Calista met her father in the Great Hall with her cloak on. The days grew steadily cooler, and yet Severus insisted that they continue their Occlumency lessons out of doors until they had real snow to contend with.

"How are your Transfiguration lessons coming along?" Severus asked her as they strode down the stone steps onto the castle's expansive front garden.

"Dismal, as usual," she scowled. And then, remembering Olivia's comment that she scowled from behind her hair all the time, she sighed and relaxed her expression. "Honestly, I don't think I'll ever catch up at this point. Professor McGonagall has me spending my regular class periods working on first-year lessons still, and I'm just falling further behind."

"I can't quite fathom why you're having so much trouble." Severus nodded in the direction of the Forbidden forest, as walking several paces outside of its perimeter was one of the paths they sometimes followed during their outdoor lessons lately.

"Yeah, I know, it should be easy enough," Calista huffed, "According to you, Professor McGonagall, Olivia, and even Marcus Flint."

Severus glanced down at his daughter, registering a vague wounded look about her expression.

"Perhaps I should clarify. You're typically an exceptional student, except when something is blocking you mentally in some fashion. Do you recall how many months it took you before you could light a flame beneath your cauldron, when you were younger?"

"Yes," Calista said, pulling her cloak tight about her and hunching her shoulders.

"You were perfectly capable of lighting that flame all along. You simply thought you weren't, because on some level you must still have been convinced that you were a Squib. And yet, as soon as you lit the flame once, it was as remarkably simple to you as it should have been from the beginning."

Severus lightly brushed the exterior of Calista's mind as he continued speaking, pleased when he felt her barriers kick in, though Calista continued walking uninterrupted. He hoped it was further proof that Occlumency could eventually become second nature to her, the way it was for him.

"There must be something in your mind that's preventing you from learning Transfiguration. As soon as you determine what that is and move beyond it, I'm certain you'll improve drastically."

"Well, if you're right, I better figure out what's tripping me up soon, or-,"

Calista stopped in her tracks, and Severus prodded her gently forward. It was an odd routine that both of them were growing accustomed to, this stop-and-go walking while Severus swiped at Calista's mental defences and she struggled to sustain them.

Unlike in her Transfiguration lessons, however, Calista was improving from lesson to lesson. He thought she might not even be aware of the progressive nature of his tests. When they had first begun these walks, she had been able only to ward off the barest of attacks. Now, he was applying almost the same mental pressure that he had been during their sit-down lessons in his office, before she stopped walking.

"Or what?" he asked, as Calista trudged forward through the grass.

"Or I'll be… I'll be in remedial lessons forever," distraction was evident in her voice, but she continued walking. He felt her defences begin to quail, but then she gathered strength and reinforced them.

_Your barriers are getting better_ , he told her mentally,  _But I can tell you're hiding something, because you're not keeping enough in front of them. Remember, you need to fool me into thinking I'm seeing all there is to see._

She slowed, but didn't stop, and he felt a gentle flux of images and mild emotions enter the foremost layers of her mind. As she concentrated on filling his latest request though, her next barrier weakened slightly, and he slipped through it to illustrate to her that it had done so.

Immediately, he was aware of tension in this layer of her mind, and sadness. He felt pulled towards the emotions, wanting to see what was causing her to feel them, but knowing that he had to respect her privacy as much as he could. He retreated slightly, and then felt the echo of a thought within her.

_Is this good? I tried to make everything seem as real as I could._

Severus reached his influence tentatively around this portion of her mind, wary of stumbling onto something she didn't want him to, and he encountered a bubble of sadness.

_I wish my cat hadn't died_ , it said when he reached for it. And then,  _I'm never going to finish my Potions essay in time for class,_ underlined with a dull, throbbing sense of tense urgency.

But Severus knew Yellow was (unless his luck had changed drastically) alive and well, and he hadn't assigned an essay to her class that week.

He stopped walking.

"Calista," he called aloud, stopping her in her tracks as well, "Come here."

She turned and crossed the several paces that separated them. "I thought I was doing well. What did I do wrong?"

Severus shook his head, and placed his hands on Calista's shoulders.

"That was excellently done," he said, and when Calista's eyes widened at the unexpected compliment, he coupled it with a rare smile. "I'm not certain if you realise how quickly you are improving lately."

"Does this mean you'll go easier on me now?" she retorted, but Severus didn't miss the way her face glowed in response to his praise.

"Nice try," he replied, the smile lingering a moment longer, "But no."

He noticed, with a surge of pride, that she still upheld her barrier and the bubbles of misleading emotion, even as he pronounced their lesson finished and they set off back towards the castle.

**o-o-o-o**

Calista regarded her reflection resolutely in the lavatory off the Slytherin common room. She was armed with a comb and the green hair clip Olivia had given her, but even with the same arsenal as her sometimes-friend, she couldn't reproduce Olivia's results.

Her hair hung lank and limp no matter which way she combed it, and she thought the hair clip just made her look pitiful – it let the world know that she had tried to look nice, and still failed miserably.

Had her ears always stuck out like that? She couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at the way the tips protruded from beneath her hair now that it was straight and tangle-free.

Deciding that it was hopeless, Calista yanked the hair clip out of her hair and shoved it into the pocket of her robes, turning away from the mirror and setting her jaw.

She would just never be pretty, she supposed. Or even plain. No, she was convinced that she was quite simply ugly, and nothing would change it. Whatever minor magic Olivia had been able to work was nothing she could do for herself, and she most definitely was  _not_  going to give Olivia the satisfaction of asking for her help.

As she strode into the common room and caught sight of Marcus Flint, she felt a little pinprick of regret, like maybe she should have tried a bit longer to make her hair look nice. As soon as the thought had formed, she felt absurdly embarrassed for no particular reason, and scowled despite herself.

"Hallo, Calista," Marcus said, hefting his broomstick and some Quidditch padding, "You want to practise that spell?"

"All right."

"I just need to put this stuff away, and I'll be right back. You want to find a pencil?"

While Marcus thumped his way down the hall with his armful of Quidditch gear, Calista scrounged a pair of pencils and set them on a study table. She put her hands in the pockets of her robe while she waited for Marcus to return, and found herself clutching the small, cold metal shape of Olivia's hairclip in her pocket.

"Right, I'm ready when you are," Marcus had returned with his wand, and nodded towards the pencils on the table. "Why don't you show me how you've been doing it, then?"

Knowing that her cast would be unsuccessful, and feeling beyond foolish, Calista waved her wand. Predictably, the pencil flattened a bit, but remained very much a pencil.

"Huh," Marcus eyed her attempt, "The wand movement looks okay to me."

"No kidding," she said flatly, "I've only been practising it for, oh, six months now."

"Well," Marcus scratched his head with the tip of his wand, "Are you distracted? My spells come out wonky when my head's somewhere else."

"Isn't it always?" Calista muttered, reflexively.

"Huh?" Marcus lowered his wand and peered at Calista.

"Nothing," she said, and waved her wand again at the stubborn pencil.

"You know what?" Marcus was eyeing Calista in a strange sort of way now, and he tilted his head. "You look like you're right angry when you do that—yeah, that there, the way you're casting the spell."

"Of  _course_  I'm angry," Calista spat, "I can't get the bloody thing to work!"

"Well of course it's not going to work if you're spitting mad – s'only curses that helps with, right?" He offered her a sort of uncertain half-grin.

"I – what?"  _Do curses work better if you're angry when you cast them?_ she wondered, committing the idea to the back of her mind for later.

"Right then," she said, shaking her head and eyeing Marcus suspiciously, "How am I supposed to get  _un-_ angry, then?"

Marcus laughed, and when Calista scowled in response, he only laughed harder.

"You're not taking the piss out of me?" he wondered, when Calista didn't join him, "You really are an angry little person like they say then, eh?"

Marcus seemed to find this all rather amusing; Calista, on the other hand, was livid.

"Like  _who_  say?" she demanded, unconsciously gripping her wand tighter.

"Oh, everyone," Marcus continued breezily, still seeming as if he were the one to deliver the punch-line of an excellent joke to Calista – and evidently, Calista thought, completely unaware how close he was to being hexed, allowing her to test the new theory he had just planted with her.

"Olivia says so of course, but she's – well, you know. All of Conor's friends say so too – at Quidditch practise he said you're nearly as bad as Kim Avery, and everyone knows she's off her rocker – s'why he made her a Beater, you know – Hey," Marcus eyed Calista in that queer way again, either not noticing that she had gone apoplectic by this point, or not feeling threatened by her anger.

"What?" Calista's voice was faint; even she wasn't certain if it was because she was so angry she was losing her voice as well as her temper, or if she was shocked by the revelation that her housemates had all noticed her tendency to do just that.

"You could go out for Reserve Beater, you know," he said, and he sounded enthusiastic enough about it that Calista realised he was serious, "That's the other thing anger is good for – hexes and Bludgers."

"What?" Calista repeated, her ire diffusing only in light of Marcus' apparent sudden lapse of sanity, as she saw it. "I thought we were done with that idea.  _Me?_  Play Quidditch?"

"Yeah, why not?" Marcus' expression now mirrored Calista's confusion.

" _Because I hate flying_ ," she actually squeaked out, surprised into confession; immediately, she regretted it, and pressed her hand to her mouth.

"Why?" he wondered, "It's loads of fun once you get used to it – come down to practise some time, why don't you, and knock a Bludger around for awhile – I bet anything you'll be able to cast that spell afterwards."

Calista opened her mouth with no notion of what was going to come out of it, and then the wall of the common room opened up and students began to fill up the common room, evidently done with classes for the afternoon.

"Think about it," Marcus tapped his head illustratively with his wand and then grinned at her, "You keep fighting with that spell long enough and I reckon you'll come 'round."

Calista closed her mouth belatedly, and gathered the offending ruler, shoving it and her wand into the pockets of her robes, and marching out of the common room. She had to get to the library, or perhaps her father's office; some place where the usual rules of the universe still applied, and no one expected her to fly around on a bloody  _broomstick_ , hitting things.

**o-o-o-o**

_Olivia,_

_I trust your second year has gone well so far. You are excelling in your studies, I presume? With all the money I pay for books to send you to that school, they ought to be teaching you something worthwhile. We are well at home; Father's health is the same as always._

_I'm writing to you about something you'll recall we discussed over the summer. That classmate of yours, the professor's daughter – I think I've pieced together who her mother is, after all._

_The only woman it could possibly be, given the girl's age and your description of what she said her mother was in Azkaban for, is Bellatrix Lestrange. I admit I overlooked her at first, since her husband is dead and certainly not teaching at Hogwarts, but I've looked at the_ Daily Prophet  _articles from those days, and I'm certain that she's the only one who fits, unless your classmate lied to you._

_I feel the need to impress upon you that the Lestranges are regarded as extremely dangerous by the Ministry, and that they remain deeply dedicated to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I would advise you to be extremely careful of the associations you make with your classmates – you do want to be certain that you are befriending the right sort of people._

_Your Concerned and Loving,_

_Mother._


	4. Chapter 4

To the dismay of the students, they were studying Mandrakes in Herbology. Their wretched cries could only be muffled so much, even with Professor Sprout's extra-fluffy earmuffs.

Calista found that she was quickly becoming an expert in replanting the things, simply because she would do  _anything_  to get them to shut up. Her Herbology grade may have been benefiting, but she left every class with a splitting headache.

She wasn't the only one, either. Olivia had been excused from class early twice, complaining of feeling faint and dizzy from the cries. The second time, she put on such theatrics that Professor Sprout had gestured to Calista, who was working next to Olivia, to accompany her to the Hospital Wing.

As soon as they had removed their earmuffs and gotten beyond where anyone in the greenhouse could see them, Olivia recovered quite miraculously.

"That was easy," she said with a self-satisfied air, "Now what shall we do with our freedom for the next half-hour?"

"What if Sprout checks with Madame Pomfrey to see if you've been to the Hospital Wing?"

"She won't," Olivia assured her, "Or at least, she didn't last time. Only McGonagall bothers to follow up on that sort of thing."

"My dad would, too," Calista told her, "If he let you go at all, I mean, without losing a cauldronful of blood first."

"Lucky he's not the Herbology professor then, aren't we?" the blonde girl smirked and then gripped Calista's wrist, pulling her in the direction of the school's stables, an area of the grounds that Calista had never been to.

"Where are we going?" Calista wondered sourly, and Olivia's secretive grin made her stomach flop.

"You'll see," she said. When the stables came into view, she saw that there appeared to be a class just breaking up. Several robed figures were milling about the area, and a taller figure, presumably a professor, was headed back towards the castle.

"Olivia!" Calista hissed, "That's a professor! He'll see us out of class!"

"You worry too much, Snapelet. That's Kettleburn, he's ancient and half-blind; he couldn't spot a hippogriff in his sitting-room."

" _Don't_ ," Calista warned, "call me that."

Olivia hushed her, and pulled her closer to the stables, where a few students still lingered. When they drew close, Olivia dropped Calista's hand and advanced without her. She stopped a short distance from the paddock fence that was attached to the stables, and she must have made some small noise, because a boy that had been standing there, leaning against a gate-post, turned to her.

Calista judged he was a fourth-or fifth-year, wearing green-trimmed robes. She thought she might have seen him in the Slytherin common room a few times, but couldn't really place him beyond that.

Sulking, she drew closer to the pair, wondering why Olivia had dragged her here in the middle of their class.

Olivia was laughing at something the boy had said; he looked over Olivia's shoulder as she approached.

"Who's your friend?" the boy asked Olivia.

"This is Calista," she said, beckoning the slighter, darker-headed girl forward, "My very dear friend. Calista, this is Colin. Remember I told you, he's simply  _brilliant_  with animals?"

Calista could feel a denial springing to her lips; Olivia had told her no such thing, and the pleading look in her normally cold blue eyes was easy to interpret. Why should Calista lie for her, just to help her curry the favour of some boy? She wouldn't.

Calista opened her mouth, looking at the boy. All would have gone as planned, if he hadn't chosen that moment to smile.

Calista felt heat rush her face; he had a fantastic smile. How could she not have noticed when they first approached how nice he looked? He had dark hair, a bit longish and tucked haphazardly behind his ears, and his eyes were hazel-coloured and lit up when he smiled.

"Oh yeah," she heard herself saying, in a breathless, airy sort of voice that she hardly recognized as her own, "You did say."

Colin laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling just so – oh Merlin, had Calista just noticed that? Since when did she notice things like that? And about  _boys_ , no less?

"Colin Greengrass," he clarified for her, "It's a pleasure, I'm sure."

"Oh yeah," Calista repeated, in the same stupid voice. Inwardly, she kicked herself. Why had she suddenly become a simpering idiot like Olivia? "Er, I mean, yes. Nice to meet you too, I guess."

"Colin's just had Care of Magical Creatures class," Olivia said sweetly, "Isn't it nice that our Herbology class gets out at just the same time?"

"What?" Olivia's simpering expression was sufficiently amusing to knock some sense back into her. She was already in this, playing along, wasn't she? She told herself that her motivation in seeing this charade through had nothing to do with Colin Greengrass and everything to do with wanting to see how much of a fool Olivia would make of herself.

"Yeah, it's fantastic," Calista agreed, now refusing to look at Colin's face again. She focused on Olivia instead. "What are we doing here, again?"

Olivia's eyes narrowed warningly, and she hurried to engage Colin again. "You said you would show us the thestrals," she went on, sparing only a pointed  _play-along_  glance at Calista, "Since we missed them on the ride to the castle at the beginning of term."

"What?" Calista interrupted, taking another step closer to Olivia, "We didn't miss them, we – Ow!"

Olivia had elbowed Calista sharply, and cut in hurriedly. "She doesn't know," Olivia advised Colin, "Isn't that sweet? I'm sure you remember – you said you'd take us in to feed them."

What was Olivia playing at now? Calista didn't have long to wonder. Colin laughed again, and she could feel his hazel eyes on her, now. "I told your friend Olivia that those carriages you rode in on were drawn by thestrals," he explained, "Don't feel bad for not realising it, though. Most no one does, until they learn it in Care of Magical Creatures class. You can't see them, right? So how would you know?"

"You can't see them?" Calista's question was directed at Olivia, but Colin answered. "I can – my grandma died last year. Before that, though, I saw the gamekeeper feeding them once and it was really cool – like the food was just disappearing. I told Olivia it was why I started to have an interest in them, and she said she wanted to see them fed, too."

Calista opened her mouth again, but shut it with a scowl after another well-aimed elbow.

"Oh, yes," Olivia said, in much the same breathless voice Calista had heard herself use a few minutes ago, "Show us, please."

Colin led them into the stables, and warned them to stay back a bit. "They can be quite dangerous. The ones at Hogwarts are tamed of course, or as tamed as thestrals can be, but even so. I've barely got permission from Kettleburn to be in here studying them by myself. I reckon I'm not supposed to bring anyone with me."

Calista and Olivia watched Colin take a small something from a foul-smelling bucket in the corner of the stables; presumably a dead mouse or small bird.

Calista cocked her head when Colin fed whatever it was to the skeletal, horse-like creature. She saw it open its reptilian mouth wide, and swallow the thing – a mouse, evidently, since she saw its tail disappear down the thestral's wide throat.

"That's brilliant," Olivia said a bit too appreciatively, "It's just like you said – it just disappears."

Calista turned her head to look at Olivia, making an effort to mask her own surprise. Could Olivia really not see the thestral?

She had seen them drawing the carriages too, on their ride to the castle, and it hadn't occurred to her that some of her classmates couldn't see them. No one had commented on it; she had seen them, and she hadn't asked anyone else if they could, too.

"You can only see them if you've seen death firsthand," Colin informed them, as if he had read Calista's mind, "Once you can see them, it's – well, let's just say it's bittersweet. They're odd-looking, too. Some folk find them a bit creepy, but I like them."

"Oh," Calista said, looking back at the very real and solid-looking thestral. "Oh, that's… er, interesting. Olivia, we have to get to Charms class now."

This earned her another sharp elbow from Olivia – Calista vowed to get her back for what were sure to be bruised ribs – but they left the stables at any rate.

"Thank you so much for showing us," Olivia simpered on the way out, "It was really amazing, Colin."

Colin chuckled, and reached into the bucket for another dead mouse. "I'm sure. Have fun in Charms class, then."

When the girls were outside and several paces from the stables, Olivia grabbed Calista's elbow and hissed.

"Honestly, you are impossibly awkward sometimes! Did you have to mention Charms class? We've got a good twenty minutes to get there, still!"

"And we're at least a fifteen minute walk from the classroom," Calista retorted, "Besides, I thought I was your 'dear friend' all of a sudden?"

Olivia glared, but then smoothed her features into a tight smile. "You are a dear friend of mine, of course. That's why I brought you with me today."

"Huh!" Calista challenged, wrenching her elbow from Olivia's grip, "Our 'friendship' is news to you as much as it is to me. What do you want from me now, anyway? Doing poorly in Potions again, are you? Or is it Herbology this time? Because you'd probably do better if you actually stayed for the whole class, you know."

"Oh, hush, Calista, you're one to talk. At least I haven't ditched an entire session of r—of Transfiguration. And anyhow, what makes you think I want anything from you? It just so happens that I regret that we quarrelled so much last year. I thought you might enjoy coming with me to see the thestrals – but I guess I was mistaken."

"So you did see the thestrals, then?"

"Oh, you know what I meant! And anyway, it wasn't the  _thestrals_  I was really interested in, was it?"

"You really couldn't see them?" Calista pressed.

"No, of course not," Olivia replied, "Could you?"

Calista glanced at Olivia. She looked curious, rather than vindictive. What if Olivia was telling the truth? What if she really did want to be friends with Calista again, after all? She  _had_  been fairly kind to her since the beginning of term, and it was wearing her out having to be on guard for Olivia's next attack.

"Yes, I can see them," Calista decided to tell her, "I've been able to all along, even when they were pulling the carriages."

Olivia looked surprised; after that, there must have been a trick of the light, because Calista thought for a second that she had seen an eerie sort of smile on her face. When she looked back, she was sure she had imagined it.

"I'm so sorry," Olivia said, sounding as close to sincere as Calista thought she could, "I had no idea, or I would have warned you what we were going to do."

"It's all right," Calista said, "They don't bother me or anything, really. I don't think they look so bad."

"What are they like?" Olivia asked, and Calista described the thestrals to her, until they arrived at the Charms classroom just a moment before the start-of-class signal sounded.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Calista met her father in the Entrance Hall on Saturday with her cloak on. As they descended the front stair of the castle, a chill breeze swept around and between them, carrying ragged, brown leaves in its wake.

Severus fastened his cloak wordlessly, and Calista tipped her face up, inhaling deeply. The cold made her nose sting.

"It smells like snow," she said, "I wonder if we'll get any soon."

"Soon enough, I'm sure," her father replied dryly, "You'll tire of it as soon as it settles."

"I like it."

"You said that last November, too – in fact, if I recall, you said that up until the first time you had to walk to and from the greenhouses in it."

They walked in companionable silence for a few more minutes, the wind picking up and rushing past their ears. Calista could almost feel the tips of her ears and nose turning red, and began to wish she'd thought to wear her scarf.

"So, I want to try something different with you," Severus said presently, "I think you may be ready for something a bit more advanced."

Calista felt a surge of pride, but then second-guessed it. "But I still can't really keep you out," she reminded him.

"Of course you can't, you're twelve years of age," he pointed out reasonably. "We will keep practising that, but it's going to take years of it before you reach that level. For now, I want you to try focusing on creating convincing distractions and misleading images in your mind."

Calista pushed forward the same image of her cat as before, with the bubble of sadness around it, and then the anxiety over homework.

Severus flicked through these prepared images, and then approached the next set of her barriers warningly.

Hurriedly, Calista cast about in her thoughts for something else to stuff between her fist and second barriers. She assembled a vague sort of disdain and attached it to the word  _Gryffindor_. It echoed hollowly through her mind, with not much else to attach to.

"You have something of the idea," he said, "It's more about misdirection and less about assembling bits and pieces, though. I want you to take your genuine, raw feelings about something, and attach them to something or someone slightly different." Severus glanced at Calista, and saw her scrunching her face up in confusion.

"For example – go on, try to penetrate my mind, and I'll show you what I mean."

Severus opened the very forefront of his mind almost entirely to her, leaving only a thin veil for Calista to try to pass through.

They hadn't been practising Legilimency at all since Calista's last nightmare in which they thought Bellatrix had been close to achieving contact with her. It had definitely fallen to a lower priority when he had learned how close Bellatrix was getting to the girl again, and had seen an urgent need to work directly on strengthening Calista against outright mental attacks.

Now, however, he was fairly confident that her barriers were strong enough to withstand a similar attack on her dreams from Bellatrix; any Legilimency where the subject wasn't in the same room with the Legilimens was, after all, extremely difficult to the point of being near-impossible.

There was, as far as Severus knew, no possible way that Bellatrix should have been able to reach Calista all the way from Azkaban; he could only assume it had something to do with the genetic link that also alerted him when she was distressed, but he hadn't found an explanation yet that satisfied him.

Calista's effort to penetrate even the thin barrier he had placed at the front of his mind was rough. He expected her to be less finessed than the last time they had practised this many months ago, but not quite so much as this. It wasn't quite as poor as her initial effort as a younger child, because the strength behind her intrusion was fair, but it was about as subtle as a stampede of giants.

_Perhaps we should return to practising Legilimancy soon, too – you won't progress far as an Occlumens without a much better grasp on it. Be that as it may, this is what I meant when I said to misdirect the source of your emotions._

Here, he showed her an image of Professor McGonagall. She could feel a deep-seated anger licking at the edges of the image, and resentment so intense that it frightened her. She caught snippets of thoughts that lashed the image, but couldn't pick one out enough to distinguish it.

The force of the hatred in her father's mind seemed as out-of-place and alarming there as an impression of doting maternal love would have seemed to her in Bellatrix's mind. She had seen him angry, had at times witnessed the hint of bitterness inside him, but never had seen such single-minded fury from him. It caused her to flinch away from the image, nearly outside the confines of his mental boundary.

The image and its associated negativity didn't disappear so much as they faded to the background of the layer of his mind that she was within; it was often like this with Legilimency: images, feelings, snippets of thought were like drifting bits in a vast, murky fluid.

Calista sensed that this layer of her father's mind also contained tugs and pinpricks of ideas, but couldn't begin to piece them together. She wondered if her mind was as confusing as this, too; and couldn't fathom how, if it was, her father seemed at times to be able to pluck thoughts from her mind that hadn't seemed as concisely formed within her own head as he made them sound.

Severus could feel Calista struggling and floundering in the pool of thoughts he had opened to her. He concentrated on guiding together some of the elements what he wanted her to see, and showed her another image.

Professor McGonagall appeared in his mind again, and this time the feelings were harder to identify. She felt a comforting heat, like she had just had a mug of tea and was now relaxing, full-bellied and content, before a great fire. Encouraged, Calista focused on the explorative tentacle she still had in her father's outermost layer, and guided it closer to the image.

She encountered a strange sort of bubble surrounding the image; puzzled, she mentally poked at it a few more times, but then she could feel it slip away; she felt a surge of fierce protectiveness, and a dizzying jolt of warmth. It made her feel absurdly happy, and when Severus gently pushed her out of his mind and sealed the barrier again, she found that she was actually, physically smiling.

"Both of the emotional responses that you felt from me were my genuine feelings for an individual, but neither is actually linked to Professor McGonagall," he said softly, his eyes fixed on her face. She truly was a different child when she smiled like that; looking at her for a brief moment before it faded, he would never have believed if he hadn't known her so well, that she was the same prickly, defensive thing that argued and snarled her way through half of each day.

Calista's smile melted into pensive consideration. "Who were they for then?"

He studied her profile as they walked on, debating how much to say; both of their breaths were coming out in wispy puffs of steam before them. After a moment of silence, Calista tilted her face up to his, still expectant of an answer.

"You'll need an astronomical level of skill in Legilimency before you discover the origins of the first response you saw," he said finally, "But I should think the second was obvious."

She searched his face, but he looked up at a passing shadow overhead. Above them, several thestrals wheeled in the sky, evidently getting their exercise. In the distance, Calista could make out a dark smudge of a shape that must be the gamekeeper Hagrid, watching them.

Calista tilted her face upward too, just as a thestral flew directly over her, casting its shadow on where she and her father stood. Calista blamed the accompanying gust of wind when she shivered; and then there was the heavy, settling warmth of her father's arm across her shoulders.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Two weeks later, a light blanket of snow coated the castle grounds. Calista had, remarkably, been given a break from Occlumency lessons while her father had left the castle for the day.

It wasn't really unusual, if he had to get some rarer potions ingredients than could be ordered through the school's usual channels, although Calista was a little surprised that whatever it was couldn't wait until Christmas break.

Still, she relished the free day, languishing in the Slytherin common room with Olivia, Emily, and Portia. The unexpected holiday had put her in such a good mood, in fact, that even Portia's presence wasn't really bothering her.

A table that was meant for study was occupied by a few first-years playing Exploding Snap, but most of the rest of the Slytherins were absent. Calista supposed a good deal of them were watching the Quidditch team practise. They had beaten Gryffindor soundly in the first match, but they were scheduled to play Ravenclaw next, and their Chasers were very good.

The falling snow and strong winds of the last few days had taken the edge off of Olivia's desire to watch the team practise, however; or maybe it was that she had a new object of affection to distract her from Marcus Flint.

"I've been doing Christmas shopping," Emily announced into the lazy silence, "I hope you'll all like what I've picked out."

"No more Gobstones, please," Olivia said, yawning. Portia caught her eye and grinned.

"Er, no. Something different this time, I promise." Emily blushed a little.

"I'm nearly done with mine as well," Portia said, "Have you done yours, 'Liv?"

"Oh yes, ages ago," Olivia said carelessly, "I asked Mother to order a few things on her last shopping trip. I expect they'll be in any day now." She looked at the other girls, and settled her gaze on Calista, an odd sort of hunger in her eyes.

"Did you finish your shopping yet, Calista?"

"Er, not exactly." She was taken aback at the odd look on Olivia's face, and felt herself tense, expecting trouble.

"Excellent," Olivia said, the expression shifting into one of avid delight, "Then I know exactly what you can get for me."

Calista sat up a little straighter, apprehensive. She was trying to trust Olivia, but it wasn't easy.

"In fact, you don't even have to buy it. You can make it."

"What do you want?" Calista tried and failed to keep her tone light.

" _Amortentia_ ," Olivia said, smiling tightly.

"I—what? Olivia, are you mad? I can't make that!"

"Of course you can," Olivia said, now sweetly cajoling, "I know you're the most talented brewer in our year."

"Olivia, that's a sixth-year potion!"

"It's also banned from Hogwarts," Emily added, her brown eyes wide, "If Filch caught either one of you with it, he'd –"

"Oh,  _hush_ , Emily. What hasn't that miserable geezer banned? Calista, look –" Olivia looked at her earnestly now, "I  _really_  want it – no, I  _need_  it. And you're the only one I trust enough to ask. I know you're capable of brewing it, and it would mean  _so_  much to me."

"Who do you want it for?" Calista asked, and Portia and Emily were both paying very close attention now.

Olivia took in the dedicated audience she had garnered, and dropped her voice to a whisper, although it was probably already low enough not to carry.

"It's not really for  _me_ ," she confided, "It's for – my parents. They've been quarrelling an awful lot lately, and I just want to help them reconcile."

"Well then, I definitely can't make it," Calista said, relieved, "It requires something from the person the potion's supposed to attract the drinker to. A hair, or saliva, or something."

"I can get you something," Olivia said hurriedly, "Of Mother's.  _Please,_  Calista? My holidays will be just utterly ruined if Mother and Father are arguing the whole time. And you see, I won't even be using it while at Hogwarts, so it's not really against the rules."

"I…" Calista looked at Olivia's pleading face, and then at Emily and Portia, who both looked a little like they might cry at any moment.

"I'll try," she said reluctantly, "But I honestly don't know if I can do it."

Olivia's face broke into a grin, and she hugged Calista impulsively, ignoring the way Calista tensed her shoulders and set her teeth.

"Thank you so much," she said, "I knew I could count on you."

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

The final weeks before Christmas break were strenuous. Calista was consulting a copy of  _Advanced Potion-Making_  she had borrowed from her father's classroom. She felt a twinge of guilt nearly every time she set foot in the classroom, knowing that if he had seen her take the book he would want to know why, and would almost certainly disapprove of what she was doing.

She could have told him; he would have put a stop to it, and forbidden her to make the potion, and that could have been the end of it. She wasn't sure, as she set up her cauldron inside her own sparse wardrobe in the girls' dormitory, why she  _hadn't_  done this.

Olivia had procured the rarer ingredients for the potion somehow, probably from her mother; Calista ignored the vague nausea in her stomach when she pondered this, knowing on some level that it meant Olivia had planned on having Calista make the potion weeks before she'd actually asked her to do it.

It was cunning of Olivia to provide the ingredients though, because she must have realised that Calista would have drawn the line at being asked to steal ingredients from her father.

There were several botched attempts at the potion, each one of which was met with increasing frustration from both herself and her client. Still, Olivia helped her dispose of each of the six or seven failed attempts.

Olivia, Calista, and Emily had collaborated on a clever charm that kept a magical flame lit in a bedpan on the floor of Calista's wardrobe during the brewing process without burning the wood. Calista rather wished she could have written about how they had done it for Flitwick, but that would have led to some awkward questions she was sure her father would hear about in the staffroom.

Adding to Calista's stress was the increasing difficulty of her Occlumency lessons. Her father had evidently felt the need to make up for her lost lesson and had once again increased the length and intensity of her lessons.

Once again, she was leaving each lesson considerably drained; this time, not only from maintaining multi-level barriers, but also from the turmoil of having to wrench deep-seated emotions from beneath her primary barriers, and direct them towards other people and things. The whole process was exhausting, emotional, and a lot more difficult than Calista could possibly have believed.

His motivation became clear a few days before the final day of classes prior to Christmas break. He announced to Calista that they would not be spending the holidays at the castle as they had last year, but that they would be visiting friends of his.

She had asked him who they were going to visit, and he hadn't given her a direct answer; instead, he told her to meet him after her final class of the term for a final Occlumency lesson before the holidays, and said he would tell her where they were going after the lesson.

The only bright spot in the week was that Calista's transfiguring spell with the blasted pencil was finally showing signs of improvement.

Standing by her open wardrobe door and watching the simmer of her secret potion, she'd decided to try practising the spell while she waited for the correct time to add the next ingredient, or stir the cauldron, or, a few times, to clean up the whole mess and start over.

Remarkably, she'd managed the transformation a few times. Away from the soothing simmer of the cauldron, however, she found that she still had great difficulty. Still, it was a start. She resolved to try doing her Transfiguration homework in the Potions classroom when she came back from Christmas break.

She had no notion of what she would do when she was actually in the Transfiguration classroom, or sitting her exams, but she hoped fervently that she'd think of something, or overcome the ridiculous block in her mind that was preventing her from performing the spell correctly when she  _wasn't_  either looking at a ruler or stirring a cauldron.

Finally, the evening before their last class, when Calista had stood hunched over her wardrobe so many times for so long that her back was aching, she smelled a delicious, tantalising aroma. It was like… like a fresh, crisp snow, and the moist, rich smell of a roomful of simmering cauldrons, and something else that she couldn't quite identify.

Her potion was a distinctive mother-of-pearl colour, and little wafts of steam came off it in predictable, lovely patterns.

"I did it!" she crowed with disbelief, and tore across the room to the door. She could hear her dorm-mates chattering from the common room beyond.

"Olivia, come here!"

A pause, and then Olivia entered the room, Portia and Emily at her heels. "Did you do it?" she asked eagerly, and Calista shushed her and beckoned them in, closing the door firmly behind them.

Without waiting to hear what Calista said, Olivia pushed past her and walked over to inspect the contents of the cauldron in the wardrobe.

"It smells fantastic," she called, "Is this right?"

"It is," Calista said, joining her over the cauldron, "At least, I'm nearly certain it is. It looks just like the text says it should. Now I just need something from your mother."

" _Nearly_  certain?" Portia asked.

Olivia turned and rummaged in her own wardrobe, and then held her hand up, index finger and thumb steepled together. From them dangled a single long, blonde hair.

"Here, use this. It was among the wrappings of the last package she sent me from home."

Calista took the hair and dropped it into the cauldron. It disappeared below the surface in a flash of pink, and then the potion returned to its pearly state.

"I need a flask," Calista said, still entranced by the potion. She had actually done it – she had brewed Amortentia. It was well beyond the level she had been working at, even during private lessons. She felt a surge of pride, followed by a flush of deep disappointment that she could not share this victory with her father.

She knew he would be immensely proud, after he got over wanting to throttle her. Olivia handed her a flask, and she poured the potion carefully into it. Only a small cauldron could fit in the wardrobe; it filled the flask with not a drop left.

Olivia corked the flask and set it down carefully; then she threw her arms around Calista.

"You're brilliant," she said, "I won't forget this."

Calista sincerely hoped she wouldn't regret what she had just done.


	5. Chapter 5

While Calista had been being coaxed into brewing an advanced and forbidden potion in her wardrobe, Severus Snape had been busy with his own nuanced and possibly explosive task; he had been to Malfoy Manor.

As soon as he had received Lucius' politely-phrased request for himself and his daughter to join the Malfoys for Christmas celebrations, he had known that his time for considering the matter of disclosing the other half of Calista's parentage was at an end. Severus knew Lucius well enough to recognize what essentially amounted to an order, and it was certainly within his interests to remain friends with the Malfoys – in Calista's too, if he could play the situation out properly.

He had considered lying about the identity of Calista's mother, but in the end he had concluded that it was too great of a risk. What if Narcissa  _did_  recognise her, or what if Calista inadvertently revealed it herself? Lucius had no ostensible reason to practise Legilimency on the twelve-year-old daughter of his old school friend, but that didn't mean he wouldn't.

It would come down to his explanation for not telling them about Calista sooner. He had always thought it was best to keep her isolated from all of Bellatrix's acquaintances for as long as possible, but now, with Lucius' handwriting staring him in the face and essentially demanding to meet her, he was questioning his decision.

He had no objections, in fact, to Calista meeting the Malfoys themselves – the problem lay in the possibility that the Dark Lord would rise again some day. If he did so in Calista's lifetime, Severus was certain he would try to recruit her, given the talents she was developing. He might not have had any interest in her as an infant; but as a full-grown witch bred from two of his favoured Death Eaters? He would wager his wand-arm that Voldemort's interest would be much keener the second time around, if there was one.

Lucius, for his part, would probably never intentionally lead Calista to harm, but Severus knew that Lucius was a follower at heart, whatever pretensions he held. If the Dark Lord, returned to his former power, asked Lucius for information about Calista that might help him to recruit or overpower her, Lucius would capitulate – not necessarily due to a lack of concern for anyone else, but simply because his concern for himself always came first.

With these concerns weighing on him, Severus had decided to pay a visit to the Malfoys alone before Christmas. It would be easier if he told them beforehand who she was. He told himself that it was to spare Calista the range of their potential initial reactions, but if he were being honest with himself – and for once, he was trying not to be – he didn't relish the prospect of Calista sitting beside him and  _elaborating_.

The less they knew about the way Bellatrix had treated her, the more protected he thought she was. It was much safer if neither of them knew the degree to which Calista – and himself, really – despised Bellatrix. She had been, after all, a particular favourite of the Dark Lord's, despite her silly stunt in trying to get him to recruit a child.

So, Severus had taken a Saturday off from mentoring Calista in Occlumency, and had travelled to Malfoy Manor instead.

After he had entered through the wrought-iron gates and walked up the drive, he had been admitted by the Malfoys' wretched-looking house-elf, Narcissa at its heels.

"Ah, Severus! Do come in. It's a pleasure to see you again."

"Narcissa. The pleasure is all mine, I am sure." He removed his cloak and hung it on a coat-rack in the hall. Bulbous green eyes followed his move from somewhere around knee-height, prompting Narcissa to look down at the servile creature.

"We'll take tea in the library today," she said crisply to the house-elf, and it was gone as quickly as Narcissa had finished speaking. Narcissa returned her gaze to Severus, where it softened considerably.

"It really is nice to see you again; Draco has been asking after you."

Severus smiled. "He is well, then? I think he looks more like his father every time I see him."

The bronze door-handle behind Narcissa turned then, and a small, pointy-faced blond boy entered the hall as if he had been summoned.

"Severus!" Draco grinned, "Hallo! Have you brought me any sweets, then?"

"Manners, Draco," Narcissa admonished him gently, "If you want to take tea with the adults today, you must behave like one."

"Sorry, Mother," Draco muttered automatically, and then: "Hello Severus, sir. It's nice to see you again.  _Have_  you got any sweets for me?"

"Not today, Draco. Haven't you had enough Chocolate Frogs to last you a lifetime by now?"

"I don't  _eat_  them all," the young boy said impatiently, "But I still haven't got all the cards yet."

"What an unfortunate circumstance." He met Narcissa's gaze over the boy's head; Narcissa rolled her eyes just slightly, but set her hand on Draco's shoulder, an affectionate smile touching her lips.

"Go and fetch your father for tea, Draco," she said, "Tell him we are in the library today."

When the four of them were situated on antique armchairs in the library (Draco looking as if he were nearly drowning in his), and they had exhausted small talk, Severus met Lucius' gaze and understood that Lucius knew his visit hadn't been merely a social call.

"There is a reason I wanted to speak with you both before the holiday."

"Draco," Lucius drawled, evidently picking up on the hint within Severus' words, "You may play in your room now."

Draco scowled, having just recently reached an age where he disliked being excluded from adult company on the basis of his age; there was something in his expression that indicated he was positive he was being sent away from an imminent, child-free party. Nevertheless, he obeyed his father. He closed the library door softly, but they all heard a muffled slam from somewhere beyond a few seconds later.

Narcissa sighed. "You see, Lucius," she said, "He doesn't even like to leave us after tea. Imagine how lonely he would be if we sent him all the way to Durmstrang."

Lucius waved his hand dismissively. "He would make friends there; it's full of our sort of people. Besides, he's only eight; we've time to decide yet. But for now," and here he turned his head in Severus' direction, "You said there was something you wished to discuss, Severus?"

"Yes, in regards to my daughter, Calista. I feel there is something I need to tell you about her before you meet her, so that you are not surprised."

Lucius chuckled, "What could possibly be so…  _surprising_ … about a twelve-year-old girl? Aren't they more or less all the same?"

"If I once suffered under that delusion, becoming a professor has alleviated it, believe me. They each find their own trouble to become embroiled in – and in that regard, let me assure you, my daughter is no exception."

This earned a smile from Narcissa; Lucius still regarded him with a curiosity that was never completely devoid of his characteristic haughtiness.

"I know I've avoided the question of her mother in the past," Severus continued, "For reasons that will soon become clear. There is… ah, shall we say, a stigma surrounding it that might diminish my favour with Dumbledore and his ilk were it to become widely known."

"Is that so?" He seemed to have genuinely captured Lucius' interest now.

"It is," Severus said, placing a resigned gravity in his words, "You may recall that we sustained many losses from the Order shortly before the Dark Lord's untimely demise – but there was one that stuck out as particularly grave. They kidnapped and kept hostage a child they suspected might lead them to the Dark Lord's closest supporters; after the incident in Godric's Hollow, when no one could find her, we all thought she had been killed."

There was a space of silence, during which Severus watched the faces of his hosts very carefully. Lucius wore a look of interested, open curiosity, as though he were waiting to hear the punch line of a joke. Narcissa looked pensive, and then troubled; and then, a blossom of something else unfurled behind her eyes.

"Surely you don't mean Bellatrix's little girl?" she breathed, hopeful, "Wasn't she… wasn't she also called Calista?"

"This is preposterous," Lucius interrupted, leaning forward and regarding Severus intently. His hand absently reached over to where Narcissa's sat on the arm of her chair, and he patted it with a comforting gesture.

"Are you trying to tell us that not only have you managed to track down Bellatrix's girl, when none of us could, but that you've raised her, too? Why you, and not Narcissa, who was more likely than not her nearest blood relative after her mother?"

"Narcissa wasn't – isn't – her  _nearest_  relative," Severus clarified, his own expression now as intent as Lucius' had been seconds before, "It's true that Calista is Bellatrix's daughter; but she is also  _mine_."

Now Lucius and Narcissa both looked surprised.  _Shocked by a twelve-year-old after all_ , Severus thought sourly.

"That is… certainly unexpected news," Lucius said finally, "Of course, we all knew that Bellatrix wasn't —ah—fully satisfied with her marriage to Rodolphus, but I, at least, assumed the child was in fact his, or perhaps his brother's."

"We all looked for her," Narcissa said softly, "Before the Dark Lord fell, and after. She had every Tracking spell you could name on her, and Bellatrix should have been able to find her anywhere, unless she was under very strong charms. And yet, even when the charms were presumed broken, there was no sign of the girl."

"I know that; I looked for years before I found her. Bellatrix never told me she was mine," his lip curled, "But I began to suspect, given… the timing of things. I couldn't explain to myself at the time why I was still looking when all sensible parties had abandoned hope; I suppose it must have been the enchantments Bellatrix placed on her. I must have felt the pull of the traces on her because of our shared blood. When I did finally find her, nearly three years had passed and she was living in some dunghill of a Muggle orphanage. They had her registered under a ridiculous false name, but I found her real records at the Ministry – Bellatrix tried to burn my name off her birth certificate, but it's still there."

Narcissa was dabbing at tear-filled blue eyes with the edge of a lace handkerchief, but Lucius eyed Severus with suspicion still.

"And how do you know," he asked softly, "That the girl you found actually was the daughter you say the Ministry has records of you and Bella producing, and not some Mudblood brat pretending to be whomever you were looking for, just to get out of the orphanage?"

Severus laughed at that. "You'll know too, when you meet her. Trust me on that, Lucius."

"Even accepting that, I fail to understand  _why_  you didn't tell us when you found her. You must know how dreadfully Narcissa mourned her loss."

"A lapse in judgement which I regret," Severus said, "But I couldn't be sure – at first, anyway – who it would be safe to tell. You know Dumbledore would never trust me quite as much if he knew I had such strong ties to the Dark Lord's purported favourite, and then what use would I be if He ever does return?"

There was a terrible moment during which Severus feared Lucius wouldn't accept his explanation of the story of how he had found Calista and why he had chosen not to tell them; both were an altered version of the truth, and the notion that Dumbledore didn't know about her parentage was an outright lie; still, it made the most plausible cover.

Then a small sob escaped from Narcissa. "I can't believe that she's alive, after all this time. I wanted – we looked for her, Lucius and I – we wanted to take her to live with us, after Bella was captured. She never told any of us she really wasn't Rodolphus', although I suppose we should have guessed. We always assumed that we were the only acceptable family she would have left outside of Azkaban."

"I have to confide in you that when I found her, she was suffering from a lack of suitable acquaintances," Severus said, "Surrounded by Muggle filth, and still traumatised from being largely neglected by the Order, I can only assume."

Here, Narcissa ducked her head, almost as if she were ashamed. "It… it might not only have been the Order," she said hesitantly, "I shouldn't say – but you must have some idea – Bella was often wretched to that poor girl. She's my sister, and we all know she has some fantastic strengths, but I always felt awful for the way she was raising her child."

"I know of that to some extent," he said carefully, "She never had the same capacity for nurturing that you do, Narcissa."

"No," Lucius agreed with amusement, "I would not consider that motherhood would ever suit Bellatrix. Wasn't she trying to offer the girl to the Dark Lord's service before it was even out of her womb?"

"I like to think that she wasn't quite serious," Narcissa offered, "Or at least, that if she was, she changed her mind after the girl was born. I can't know for certain; I think I saw Bella's girl more than anyone else, and it was only a handful of times at best."

"I'm afraid I can't attest to have any better notion of her intents than you do. Bellatrix suffered only a brief lapse during which she enjoyed my company," Severus said dryly, "Months before Calista was born, she had apparently regained to her wits, and I my relative invisibility."

Narcissa's mouth twisted into a sad half-smile; Lucius nodded once and then rose to his feet. "Thank you for finally disclosing this to us, Severus," he said, and a less observant man than Severus might have missed the slight emphasis on his words.

"I suppose all that remains now is for us to meet her and welcome her back into her rightful family," he continued, "Which we look forward to at Christmastime. In fact, Narcissa and I insist that you both spend the entirety of the Christmas break with us. It will be good for Draco to become better acquainted with his older cousin, and I'm sure Narcissa would like to make up for lost time."

"We would be delighted," Severus said, as though he were being given a choice.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

After her final class of the fall term, Calista made her way to the dungeon corridor that housed the Potions classroom as well as her father's office and quarters. Calista paused outside the door to her father's office, and tried to push her lingering pride, and the reason for it, deep beneath several layers of barriers. It was difficult, because what she really wanted more than anything was to share her achievement with him, but of course that was out of the question.

She hoped today's lesson wouldn't be too exhausting; she wasn't sure if she could keep it successfully hidden from him if he was testing her barriers today.

Exhaling, she set a triple barrier, leaving increasing space behind each layer. Hopefully, he wouldn't delve much deeper than that. She turned the knob of his office door and entered.

"How were you classes?" Severus looked at her; for once, there wasn't a pile of papers on his desk awaiting correction. It looked rather as though he had been waiting for her.

"Oh – they were okay."

"Transfiguration?"

Calista grimaced. "I'd rather not talk about that right now."

"Very well, very well. I have something to tell you anyway, and then we'll practise once more what you've been working on this month."

"Are you finally going to tell me where we're going for Christmas?"

Severus considered her, and gestured to the seat across from his desk.

Calista sat, and Severus regarded her an instant longer before speaking.

"Do you remember any – relatives of yours from your early childhood, besides your mother?"

"What? No, not really," She was startled by the question; they weren't really going to visit Bellatrix's family, were they?

As soon as she had considered this, she discarded it; he wouldn't ask her to see any of them, she was sure of it. It must be some family member of his he was referring to, then; but Bellatrix had never really acknowledged  _who_  her father was, so how could she have been expected to know any of his kin?

"Well," Severus sighed, "We've been invited to visit friends of mine for Christmas. I attended Hogwarts with them, and we've been keeping in touch. I've spoken to them about you from time to time, and they're eager to meet you. They have a son, a few years younger than you."

Calista stiffened. "You know them from school? Were they – were they friends of  _hers_ , too?"

"I'm not sure that Bellatrix ever had – friends, as it were," he answered carefully, "But the fact is that the majority of my acquaintances were familiar with her as well. Calista, I wouldn't ask this of you if I didn't think that you were capable of handling it."

Well. That was almost true. He didn't have much choice, anymore.

Calista thought for the space of a minute, and then said, "But you asked if I remembered any relatives, not any of my mother's friends."

"The Malfoys are friends of mine from school," he repeated, "Narcissa Malfoy is also your mother's sister, and their son Draco is your cousin."

"Her  _sister_?" Calista's jaw dropped. "I'm not going."

"Let's start by establishing that you are indeed going," Severus said, and put up his hand when Calista inhaled sharply and opened her mouth to protest again. "So we can move on to reassurances that you need not fear Narcissa. She may be Bellatrix's sister, but they are not the same woman."

"Did they get on well before my mother went to Azkaban?" she challenged.

Severus considered his words carefully. "Sometimes," he finally said, "Although I can tell you that Narcissa disapproved of the way that Bellatrix was raising you."

"She… this Narcissa," Calista rolled the name around on her tongue, "She knew me? When I lived with – when I was small?"

"She saw you a handful of times. Enough to cause her to question Bellatrix's parenting ability."

Calista laughed. The sound was harsh and short, and it echoed off the stone walls. "She  _questioned_  her parenting ability? There wasn't a  _question_  at all."

Severus felt the familiar pushing, rolling sensation of Calista's emotions bubbling up like an overheated cauldron; felt a dim awareness of her feelings in his own mind, and sensed that she was seconds away from one of her vicious outbursts.

"Why are you angry?" he asked her quietly, and then before her rage could build, "I'm telling you that you have another adult in your life who cares for you, who wanted to help you when you were small."

"Then why  _didn't_  she?" Calista challenged.

"If Narcissa is guilty of overlooking the extent of Bellatrix's cruelty, then so am I," he told her softly, rising to pace the length of the room. "You are probably correct to think that both of us acted selfishly in failing to realise how abysmal your situation was, because action for either of us would have been at great personal risk, given the political climate at the time."

He glanced at his daughter, her emotions caught between rage and despair, her face struggling to conceal the evidence of both. Yet again, he felt confronted with the fact of her youth, wondered for the hundredth time if he expected too much from her or not enough.

"You cannot possibly understand the atmosphere of the time," he told her as he continued to pace, "I hope you never can. Every word, every action – they had to be perfect, no matter which side of the war you were fighting on. It was as though the entire wizarding world was polarised, serving either the Dark Lord or Dumbledore, and if you'd earned the trust of one, then the other surely wanted your head. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Magic was killing first and asking questions later. For some, the only safe place was under the shadow of the Dark Lord's cloak – or Dumbledore's. Bellatrix was always his favourite. Only she possessed the… the utter blindness to consequence, to morality, even to herself that the Dark Lord so yearned to inscribe in all of his followers along with the Dark Mark. He saw it as loyalty; really, I think it was madness, but perhaps that was the only way one  _could_  be as loyal to him as she always was."

Calista had folded her arms across her chest and was following her father's pacing with eyes wide and dark; he could no longer feel her emotions, and her face was blank. Severus had to believe that Bellatrix was sufficiently blocked from Calista's mind, because he was treading a dangerous path with his words.

"Had anyone spoken or acted against Bellatrix, it would ultimately have amounted to acting against the Dark Lord himself. At best, he was indifferent to violence; at worst, he might have gained a keen interest in her methods, curious if they would work to turn you into a lifelong follower. Still, given this, I would have acted if I had truly known. I believe that Narcissa would have, too. The question is, could we both have done more to find out? Possibly, in her case. I know I certainly could have, and the regret that I did not…"

"Dad, stop it," Calista interrupted, "I don't – It's not your fault. You couldn't have known."

"I will never cease blaming myself," he said, "But if you don't blame me, then you cannot blame Narcissa, either."

"She knew more than you did," Calista said, her inflamed emotions salved by a sudden heavy, overwhelming apathy. "Anyway, fine. I don't care. If you want me to go there for Christmas, I will."

"Good. As I said, you don't need to fear Narcissa. However, I would advise you to be cautious with her husband. He can be… rather like your friend Olivia, I think."

"Oh, an arrogant prat then," she said hollowly with false cheeriness, "Excellent."

"He differs from your friend in that he is a reasonably competent Legilimens," Severus warned sternly, "So I must impress upon you the importance of guarding your mind diligently. Don't make it obvious that's what you're doing; just don't let him get beyond your first layer of protection."

Calista's already light complexion paled further. "Are you mental? I can't block a fully-trained Legilimens!"

"I didn't say he was fully trained, I said he was reasonably competent. Very few wizards are ever actually trained, which gives you an advantage – one which I doubt you will need, since he is unlikely to have a reason to suspect you would be hiding anything. Maintaining your normal barriers is likely to be sufficient."

"What if it's not?" she persisted, "What if he can tell I'm blocking him and he tries to dig deeper?"

Severus smiled wryly. "Don't you recall I told you we would be practising today?"

"Seriously, I don't think I can –,"

She stopped speaking at his sudden prodding of her mind; automatically, the forefront of her consciousness was flooded with an eddying current of disjointed images and tendrils of emotion. The internal wall separating this part of her mind from the inner levels was like a castle glimpsed far away, and through a thick fog; it might have been there, but what place would it have as the backdrop of such a modern carnival? It was only reasonable to conclude that it wasn't there at all.

"Yes you can," Severus murmured.


	6. Chapter 6

Severus Snape glanced over his shoulder one last time before approaching the great wooden door of Malfoy Manor. Behind him, his daughter hopped from one foot to the other, her ears and the tip of her nose pink from the cold. Little puffs of steam escaped her nose and mouth.

He opened his mouth, as if to address her, but then the front door opened inward, and they were greeted by the sight of an imposing-looking blond couple – or rather, Severus was – closer to his daughter's own level was a tiny, pitiful-looking creature with big green orbs for eyes, dressed in nothing but a tea towel. He appeared ready to take the guests' cloaks, but before they had even stepped inside, he was reassigned.

"Set the table, Dobby," the man commanded coldly, releasing his hold on the elf as he stepped back to let the company inside. "Ah, Severus," he continued, in a much friendlier tone, "Please, come in. Leave your cloaks here in the foyer; the house-elf will collect them later. We'll take tea in the sitting room before supper."

While Severus removed his cloak, Calista stood idly as if she hadn't heard the man; her gaze had followed the small creature as it slipped past a heavy wooden door into another room off the main hall.

"Calista," Severus' voice snapped her back to attention, and the girl unclasped her cloak, aiming a passing glance in her father's direction. She pulled it off reluctantly, and looked up at their hosts, feeling awkward and foolish in the clothes she had on underneath her cloak.

Before travelling to the Malfoys', Severus had taken her shopping in Hogsmeade, and had surrendered her to the woman in Felicity's Formals for what felt to Calista like an eternity. When she was finally allowed to leave, she parted with four new dresses and a slew of matching accessories. She, who had never worn a dress once in her life, was expected to wear one every day they stayed with the Malfoys, for she hadn't been allowed to pack any of her old clothes. Severus had even bought her two pairs of new shoes and some horrible scratchy tights that the salesgirl had recommended.

She stood now in the Malfoys' foyer, wearing a knee-length navy dress with small white dots all over it, and itchy white tights with stiff, shiny black shoes. She had clipped part of her hair back in an imitation of the way that Olivia had once styled her hair near the beginning of term, but the result wasn't quite the same without the hair potion Olivia had used.

"We're so pleased to finally meet you, Calista" the woman said gently, and Calista regarded her warily while the introductions were made, searching her face for a resemblance to Bellatrix. She had the same cheekbones, the same nose. Her eyes were the same colour, but where Bellatrix's were icy and intense, this woman's were kinder, even if they were not exactly soft. Human, Calista supposed, was the word she was searching for.

"Hello," Calista replied, her voice softer than she intended it to sound. "Uhm, thank you for inviting us," she added, feeling that she was expected to say something more.

"Shall we, then?" Lucius Malfoy led them all into a room off the main hall, across from the one the house-elf had gone into. The furnishings in the room were sumptuous; the floor was made of stone with a huge, thick rug thrown over most of it. A huge fireplace topped with a gilded mirror took up most of one wall, flames crackling merrily from it and throwing soft shadows across the room. As Lucius settled into the largest and most comfortable-looking chair in the room, motioning Severus and Calista to sit down as well, Narcissa slipped towards another door by the fireplace.

"I'll fetch Draco," she murmured, as the house-elf appeared bearing a tray set for tea. Calista didn't care for tea, but she took a few biscuits off the tray when the house-elf came to her; she offered him a small, polite smile in return, but the creature scurried away, casting his eyes down.

"So, Calista, I understand you are in your second year at Hogwarts?" Lucius regarded her across the coffee table, teacup paused halfway to his lips.

"Yeah," she replied, "I mean, uhm, yes." She glanced at her father, who looked calm as he sipped his own tea; of course, Calista knew he was nervous, despite appearances. She wasn't quite sure exactly what the nature of his friendship with Lucius Malfoy was, but she knew that he very much wanted both of the Malfoys to like her.

"Which subject is your favourite?" Lucius queried.

"Well, Potions is my best subject, naturally," she said, "Although I really like Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts as well."

Lucius' brow arched slightly, and Calista added, "Of course it would be nice if Professor Foran would teach us some of the offensive spells as well. I mean, of course I have my father to teach me, but I think everyone at Hogwarts should learn them, too."

Lucius smiled approvingly, just as Narcissa re-entered the room with a young blond boy in tow.

"Well said," and here he looked up at Narcissa, "Calista tells me nothing has changed since our own days at Hogwarts. They're still wasting time with-" and here he sneered, " _Defence_  classes instead of teaching proper Dark magic."

"I can't say I'm surprised," Narcissa replied, leading Draco across the room to where Calista sat, "What a dreadful shame that fool Dumbledore didn't give the post to Severus – I'm certain he'd make sure the right things were being taught. Draco," she transitioned, "This is your cousin, Calista. Calista, meet our son, Draco."

"Hello," Calista greeted the younger boy, who stood before her chair rather imperiously, studying her.

"Say hello to Calista and then sit down for tea, darling," Narcissa said as she settled into her own chair, "supper will be served soon."

"Do you collect Chocolate Frog cards?" Draco asked his older cousin without preamble, "I have all the best ones already."

"Er, no, not really," Calista answered.

"Oh. Well, you should," Draco said, and then he sat down beside her chair on the rug. Lucius opened his mouth, perhaps to remind Draco that tea time was customarily observed while seated on actual furniture, but Narcissa shot her husband a look and smiled slightly "Let them get acquainted," she murmured, and Lucius closed his mouth, sparing only a disapproving glance at his son before shifting his attention to Severus.

"How do you find Calista responding to the curriculum at Hogwarts?" he asked, "Aside from the nonsense about not teaching the Dark Arts, is it challenging enough? Draco has been demonstrating his magical ability left and right these days, and I'm worried he won't find enough of a challenge at such a soft school."

"Ah," Severus replied, glancing in his daughter's direction, "Well, Calista is quite advanced for her year, but several of my colleagues give her extra assignments and allow her to explore additional topics beyond those covered in class. I myself am always happy to offer additional assignments to students who desire it; in fact, on Calista's exams last year, she was rated as performing at a fourth-year level in Potions."

Calista was glad that he hadn't mentioned to the Malfoys that she had scored below par in Transfiguration, but she had to bite her lip to keep from boasting about the Amortentia potion she had brewed in her wardrobe. It was a feat nearly as impressive as it was against the rules.

"I have five  _Salazar Slytherins_ ," Draco confided to his cousin, holding up five fingers in her direction, "He's my favourite, because I am going to be in Slytherin house like Father was."

"I'm in Slytherin, too," Calista told him, nibbling on a biscuit, "It's my second year."

Draco cocked his head, interest spreading across his pointy face. "Do you know any curses you can show me?"

Before Calista could answer, a slight tap on the door of the room caused Lucius to rise. "I believe supper is ready," he said, offering his arm to Narcissa. Severus and Calista followed, Draco scampering ahead to claim his favourite chair.

The dining room was every bit as large and impressive as the drawing room. It was dominated by a huge, beautifully polished dark wood dining table, which was set for five, though twelve would have fit comfortably.

Lucius' eyes swept over the expansive table, and with a flourish of his wand, it retracted until it was half as long as it had been, bringing the place setting at the foot of the table close to the rest. After he had done this, Lucius sat down at the head of the table, and Narcissa at the foot. Lucius indicated for Severus to sit at his right. Draco stood behind the chair that was closest to his mother, across from the only remaining empty place setting, his small fists wrapped around the chair back. As soon as his parents were seated, Draco climbed into his chair, leaving only one set place for Calista - between Lucius and Draco, and across from her father.

The food, though there was enough of it to feed all of Slytherin house, and though it was rich and delicious, was mostly lost on Calista, who could have been eating nothing but porridge for supper for all the attention she was giving it.

They hadn't even gotten halfway through supper when Lucius brought Bellatrix up.

"I'm curious, Severus, to know which spells Bellatrix placed on Calista."

There was a fraction of a moment, just long enough to be slightly uncomfortable; Calista felt Lucius' eyes on her, and concentrated on keeping the forefront of her mind clear, her boundaries strong.

"What other Chocolate Frog cards have you got, Draco?" Calista whispered to Draco, and as he began rattling them off, she was suddenly very enamoured of her newfound younger cousin - the banality of his card collection was the perfect thing to focus on to keep her mind calm, and he was more than willing to keep listing them to a captive audience.

"The protection spells, the tracking spells... do you know which ones she used?"

Severus' voice was low, silky; his response measured, as though he were considering the question for the first time. "Well, I believe she managed to tap into Calista's Trace somehow and modify it. It's powerful magic, attached automatically to every witch and wizard at birth - it seems logical to me to use it as a starting place. Beyond that, I can only guess. A Proximity Charm, certainly, that notified her when Calista was a certain distance away."

Lucius waved his hand dismissively. "Of course. But surely there were more? Bellatrix always struck me as someone who took the proper precautions with her...property."

Calista's neck tensed, and she felt a rush of anger pushing at her mental barriers from within.

"What about... what about Merwyn the Malicious, Draco? How many of him do you have?" she whispered,

"People are not as easily protected as objects," Severus said lightly, "I'm sure you know that as well as I do."

"I have two," Draco said quietly, "I had three, but I traded one away to my friend Vincent for another Salazar."

"You could argue that point, Severus, but don't forget that one cannot cast blood magic on an object."

"Vincent is always making foolish trades," Draco continued conspiratorially, as he speared a piece of broccoli on his fork and shoved it in his mouth, "I'm just glad it's often with me. Once -"

Narcissa laid her own fork down and looked at her son. "Draco," she admonished quietly, "You musn't speak with your mouth full."

Calista could feel the wild roiling of fear, of anger beneath the surface layer of her mind, and she focused all of her willpower and pushing it further down, further inside. Unconsciously, she let her own fork drop beside her plate, and clasped her hands together on her lap under the table.

" - effects of blood magic in conjunction with an opposing Fidelius Charm have not been studied, and I believe she may have been held under one. I'm afraid that, short of asking Bellatrix directly, we may never know all of the spells she attached to Calista."

"A pity we cannot ask her," Lucius said, motioning for his plate to be cleared away, "I'd hoped to learn of some morbidly fascinating twist on tracking spells - you'll recall our Bella was nothing if not...  _creative..._ in her methods."

Dobby appeared at Lucius' elbow and began clearing the main course from the table, just as Draco swallowed his broccoli.

"Once, I convinced Vincent to give me Morgan le Fay and Rowena Ravenclaw for Albus Dumbledore. Everyone knows it's the most common card, and a dull one besides. I told him the one I had was a limited edition, if you looked at it exactly at midnight, a giant would appear in his portrait and rip his head off." Draco sniggered, clearly proud of himself.

Lucius shifted his gaze to Calista, to see the girl staring passively at her plate, her hands hidden below the table. Draco was looking at her expectantly.

She felt his gaze immediately, and latched onto the last thing Draco had said; anything to keep from responding to Lucius' insinuations about blood magic.

"Your friend Vincent sounds daft," she muttered, just as Lucius addressed her.

"Calista." She couldn't ignore him openly; she lifted her gaze to his.

"Is something wrong?" His tone was light, but the sudden pressure against Calista's mind was not. Nor was it finessed; she felt him swipe through the first layer of her mind as casually and thoughtlessly as he might swipe an orange from a bowl of fruit.

She didn't break eye contact. "No," she managed, surprised that her voice sounded steady, nonchalant. "I think I'm full, is all."

Her skin crawled, and internal alarms went off as she felt him sift through the conversation she'd been having with Draco about Chocolate Frog cards; her uncomfortable experience shopping in Hogsmeade for dresses the week prior; the last detention she had served, for threatening to curse Oliver Wood within earshot of Professor Sinistra from Astronomy.

"That's a pity, indeed," Lucius drawled casually, "Are you certain you haven't saved room for dessert?"

"I'm... I'm certain. Thanks."

"Perhaps another night," As their exchange ended, it felt natural for Calista to let her gaze fall away from his, and as soon as she did, she felt their connection sever abruptly, though she hadn't forced him out, and she hadn't felt him deliberately withdraw.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Narcissa showed Calista to a tastefully decorated room on the second level. It contained a large bed, double the size of Calista's own in the Slytherin dormitories, and a huge armoire. There was a thick, soft rug next to the bed and a set of heavy brocade curtains on the window. There was even a sitting area, with two armchairs and a tiny side table, and the light in the room came from a great overhead candelabra, which Narcissa lit by flicking her wand upwards absently as they entered the room.

Narcissa perched delicately on the edge of the large bed, bringing herself more or less at eye level with her niece, and used the opportunity to search the child's face much as Calista had surveyed her when they arrived - looking, undoubtedly, for the same thing - a resemblance to Bellatrix.

"You have the Black family profile to be sure - the cheekbones, the chin, high forehead," Narcissa tilted her head slightly, "You have your father's nose, though."

"I don't think I look very much like her at all," Calista disagreed quickly.

"Oh, you do," Narcissa replied, with a slight lift of her shoulder, "But children never wish to be told they resemble their parents." Narcissa half-smiled, and rose to her full height, placing her hand on the side of Calista's neck, in a gesture that was somewhere between cupping her cheek and patting her shoulder. It should have been awkward, but somehow she made it seem elegant and gracious, and Calista found that she could stand the touch without flinching away.

"The old families are growing sparse, my dear. We must keep each other close, yes?"

"Yes, Mrs. Malfoy," Calista managed, unsure.

"Please, call me Aunt," Narcissa said softly, as she exited the room, pulling the door gently closed behind her. "I'll let your father know where your room is, in case you wish to bid him good night."

As soon as Narcissa had left the room, Calista kicked off her new shoes and yanked the tights off her legs. She had a good minute or two of simply scratching her newly bare legs, as if her fingernails could scrub away the discomfort of the last several hours. When that was done, and her skinny calves were crossed with faint white marks from all the scratching, she pulled the new navy dress off over her head tossed it over the back of one of the armchairs. When she opened the armoire, she saw that someone had already put her clothing away, and she reached hungrily for her most worn and comfortable nightdress, pulling it on and hugging it around herself before flopping down onto the oversized bed. Without rising again, she reached her hands up and yanked the clip out of her hair, letting it fall onto the night table as if it were a much heavier burden.

Calista lay in the bed, looking absently up at the ceiling, while she deconstructed that evening's supper conversation in her mind.

Even though her father had warned her that Lucius might try to invade her thoughts, it had still unsettled her a great deal. There was something alien and somehow barbaric about his presence in her mind, not at all like her father's during their lessons. This had been more primitive, and somehow, even though she had not let him see beyond her outermost layer, more invasive.

She supposed it was rather like the difference between going through a photo album with someone else, and having that someone else stroll into your bedroom in the middle of the night and steal the photos from it. At any rate, it was obvious to Calista that Lucius hadn't bothered to try to hide his presence in her mind at all - and she wasn't sure what that meant. Was he trying to intimidate her by making certain that she knew he was using Legilimency on her?

She wanted, badly, to speak to her father about it, but she wasn't sure if it was safe to do so while they were still under the Malfoys' roof. Even asking him through legilimency, mind-to-mind, felt like a risk, since she really only knew how to communicate with her father mind-to-mind using the outermost layer of thought - the same one Lucius had already pilfered through once.

One thing was for certain: she was fiercely glad for all of her lessons on filling the mental layers between barriers with convincing content. Even though Lucius' invasion had surprised her, she had felt more or less prepared for it, which in turn surprised her perhaps more than it should have.

After she had run through these things in her mind for perhaps an hour, she heard a soft knock on the door, and she sat up, pushing her loose hair behind her ears just as her father's voice followed his knock through the closed door: "Are you still awake?"

Calista was relieved to hear his voice - instantly, she was able to push her worries about Lucius Malfoy somewhere further away in her mind. She rolled her eyes good-naturedly and crossed the room to the door, pulling it open. "I know you can see the light underneath the door," she said, by way of greeting, "Of course I'm still awake."

"Ah," Severus said, as he followed Calista into the room. While she settled herself on the edge of the bed again, legs curled up underneath the hem of her nightdress, Severus dropped into the armchair that wasn't draped with Calista's new outfit. "And you were so delightful all day. To think, I almost feared you'd been replaced with another, more civilised child."

"Those stupid tights are as civilised as you're getting out of me today," she said as she cast an accusing look at the corner of the room where she had carelessly thrown them.

"The woman in the store liked them on you - what did she say, exactly? That you were 'simply darling', I believe?"

Calista levelled a glare at him, half-teasing and half-resentful. "I'm regretting once more my decision not to hex her when she said it."

"A decision that was based on civility," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly.

"No," Calista said, "It was based on my distaste for sorting flobberworms in your office."

"Same difference, when you get right down to it," Severus allowed his own mouth to twitch into a smile, for the briefest of moments. When it had flitted away, his eyes found his daughter's and held them.

_I'm proud of you tonight._

The words slipped into the outermost layer of her mind, and she smiled tiredly. "Thanks."

"Sleep well, Calista," Severus said softly, after a moment of companionable quiet passed between them.

"Good night." Calista's narrow face was split by a wide yawn. Severus stood to leave and, approaching the door, pulled it nearly closed behind him, then paused, catching sight of Calista's wand poking out from the pocket of her new dress as it hung over the back of the armchair. He aimed his own wand up at the candelabra, and as he tilted it away, the flames faded away, leaving the room in darkness.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Christmas at Malfoy Manor was unlike anything Calista had ever seen before. On Christmas Eve, thousands of witchfire lights and a huge Christmas tree had appeared, most likely by magic.

On Christmas Day, Draco had been opening gifts until well into the afternoon. There were packages upon brightly coloured packages of toys, sweets, clothing, books, and even a brand-new broomstick. He had also received a KidKauldron Beginner's Potions Kit (from Severus, of course) that contained a small cauldron, a wooden spoon, several plastic phials and flasks, a measuring cup, and packets of inert ingredients that were advertised to be "very unlikely to burn your house down or turn your child into a toad".

Calista, for her part, received an impressive spread of gifts herself. Severus had given her an expanding bookshelf, which folded into a small wooden box that would fit neatly underneath her bed, until the correct password was spoken to open it up into a full-sized bookcase. There were several new books to add to her collection as well, and a set of new quills.

The Malfoys had given her things as well. There was a new comforter set for her bed, patterned with a night sky full of stars that actually changed colors and flickered convincingly, and an assortment of sweets.

There was also a tiny, gold-coloured box that Narcissa handed to her after she had taken several pictures of Draco with his new broomstick. Calista pulled the ribbon off and opened the box to reveal a beautiful gold pendant with a calligraphic ' _C'_  engraved in it. Speechless, she stared at it, until Narcissa took the box gently from her hands and lifted the pendant out of it. It was on a delicate gold chain, which Narcissa reached to fasten around Calista's neck.

"It's a locket," Narcissa said, demonstrating how it opened. "You can put pictures inside."

"It... It's very lovely," Calista stammered, shocked to have received such an expensive gift. "Th-Thank you."

Narcissa looked as if she were about to say something else, but then Draco crashed his new broomstick into the Christmas tree and she leapt up to make sure he hadn't hurt himself.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

The day before they were to return to Hogwarts, Calista was in Draco's room, helping him set up his new KidKauldron. He cleared off the surface of the mahogany desk in his room, placed the KidKauldron's heating unit on the desk. It was a bit like a hotplate, except that it would only conduct heat through the cauldron, and felt cool to the touch everywhere else.

"We should rinse the cauldron out before we use it," Calista said, as her cousin started pulling the ingredients packets out of the box. "Just in case they used something to clean it that could react with your potion and ruin it."

They carried the cauldron into Draco's washroom, and Calista rinsed it out while Draco hovered behind her.

"'What kind of potion are we going to make?" Draco asked once they were back in his room.

Calista surveyed the labels on the ingredients in their brown paper packets.

"We can make... let's see... A Bubble Breath potion. It does exactly what it sounds like. Or we could make a potion you can drip onto your vegetables to make them taste like chocolate, or one that will turn your hair green for a few hours."

Draco cocked his head "Is that all?"

Calista laughed, and pointed to the box. "There's not much you can make with ingredients that are 'very unlikely to burn your house down' no matter how you use them."

"Do the vegetables really taste like chocolate?"

"They do, but it doesn't change the texture. A chocolate carrot is okay, but imagine chocolate broccoli, or chocolate sprouts. Honestly, it's kind of weird."

"The Bubble Breath one then," Draco said, and Calista separated out the ingredients they would need for it.

"Okay, Draco," Calista said, "First you need to take four of those dragonfly wings, and crush them into a fine dust."

They continued in this vein, with Calista instructing, and helping Draco here and there with the preparation. The little hotplate that came with the cauldon wasn't nearly as effective as an actual flame, but a Bubble Breath potion didn't really take too much finesse; the ingredients just had to stew together in reasonably warm milk until little light-blue bubbles started rising out of it. When it was finished, Calista poured it into a flask, and made Draco wait until it was cooled to drink it.

As promised, the potion allowed Draco to blow bubbles from his mouth simply by exhaling, and he had a marvelous time blowing them out and then trying to catch them.

"How long does this last?"

"An hour or so," Calista said, poking one of his bubbles with her finger as it floated by her and popping it.

"Can we make it again?"

"I have to start packing my things to go back to school soon. Tell you what, I'll write the instructions down so you can make it yourself anytime you want to, okay?"

"Brilliant," Draco said, and puffed out another school of opalescent blue bubbles.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Calista went through the guest room, making sure she had remembered to put all of her things into her trunk. She considered leaving her stupid new dresses behind, but she was sure Narcissa would just send them to her anyway, so she reluctantly threw them into the bottom of her trunk, piling all of her new gifts on top of them.

During their stay, Bellatrix had come up four more times in conversation, and Lucius had tried to read her mind twice more. Each time, Calista bristled inwardly at the intrusion but kept calm on the surface. She wasn't sure exactly what he wanted to find, but whenever one of them broke eye contact, his presence disappeared from her mind instantaneously. She couldn't wait until the got home so she could feel safe discussing it with her father. She was reasonably sure that Lucius hadn't gotten anything important from her, but she'd feel much better once she could get her father's opinion too.

Overall, she was relieved to be going back to Hogwarts, Remedial Transfiguration or no, but she thought she might actually miss having Draco around. He was a bit spoiled, to be sure, but he wasn't bad company, for an eight-year-old. She had really enjoyed teaching him to brew simple potions with his new kit, and all his questions about Hogwarts and about which curses she knew made her feel looked up to, a bit like she thought Kimberly and the other sixth-years must feel about her.

One thing was for sure, she thought, as she left the guest room for the final time, trunk in tow. She was  _never_  going to wear any of these ridiculous tights again.


	7. Chapter 7

The night before classes resumed, Calista was in Severus' office, helping him replenish and refill some of his supplies from the additional stores he kept in the workroom beneath his quarters.

"So, " Severus began, unscrewing the top to a jar of pickled newts' eggs, "How are you doing, after this past week?"

"I'm... okay, I think. I mean, it was kind of strange, but... Draco and Aunt Narcissa are nice, I guess."

She fiddled with the gold locket around her neck, twisting it around her finger, as she watched her father for a minute.

"But?" Severus recovered the newts' eggs and reached for another jar.

"I don't like Lucius. Every time he was talking to me about  _her_ , he was trying to read my thoughts."

Severus paused, hands stilling for a moment. "How many times?"

"Three."

Severus exhaled, and reached for another jar; to nearly anyone he would seem nonchalant, but Calista knew him well enough to recognize his careful, deliberate movements. He waited for her to elaborate.

"It was really strange, though. He only got through when he was looking right at me, and if I looked away, it was like he... just disappeared. He didn't withdraw, I didn't feel that, but I didn't force him out, either. He was just... gone."

She picked up a half-empty jar of powdered asphodel root, and carefully refilled it from a larger jar. Severus remained quiet.

"He was also... he wasn't subtle about trying to read my thoughts. It was really obvious to me what he was doing. I could feel him just sort of grabbing at the things that were in the front of my mind."

"You must have been angry with him," Severus prompted carefully.

"Oh, I was fuming," she admitted, "Even before he entered my mind. I hated the way he kept talking about her. I had to really concentrate on keeping it hidden behind all the other stuff."

"But you did?" Severus' hands paused as he looked directly at his daughter.

"Yes," she glanced up, but his eyes were unreadable as ever.

Severus nodded, and began working again. He waited a spell to speak, until he could trust himself to moderate his voice. "Why do you think Lucius' intrusions felt the way they did?"

"I thought maybe he was trying to intimidate me, sort of saying he was going through my thoughts without trying to hide it because he could."

Severus turned away from her, under pretense of checking the shelves to be sure all of the jars were now properly stocked, then leaned against the edge of his desk, facing Calista only when he knew he had full control of his emotions. "And yet, after making such a show of arrogance, he didn't attempt to breach any of your other barriers?" he asked silkily.

"Well, no," Calista said, wrinkling her nose in thought. "I don't know that he even realized they were there."

"And why do you think his connection severed when you broke eye contact?"

"I'm not sure. It seemed strange."

"Think carefully," he said, "I'll even let you off your Occlumency lessons this week if you answer correctly."

Calista bit her lip, considering everything he had taught her about Occlumency and Legilimency.

"He wasn't using a wand, so that would weaken him..." she mused, looking at Severus for confirmation.

He remained impassive. "Go on," was all he said.

"Only a couple of things make sense," she said, twirling the locket around her finger again, "I don't think he could hide himself so well that I wouldn't sense him, because he was really obvious at first. So... I guess the only thing, since I didn't feel him withdrawing, is that he couldn't keep the connection without eye contact."

"And based on that assumption, why do you think his presence was so brazenly obvious?"

She set her eyes on the floor, thinking hard, still twirling the necklace chain around her index finger. "I... I guess he didn't think I could tell he was there... which would mean he didn't think I was hiding anything in other layers..."

"Which means?" Severus prompted.

"Which means..." she tilted her head up to meet his gaze. "Which means, he doesn't think I know anything about Occlumency."

"Ah, " Severus said, forcing a small smile, "Then it means I was correct, when I told you that you could handle him."

"Only because he didn't know I was hiding anything," Calista said, releasing the necklace from her fingers.

"Yes. That is correct. You kept your mind safe because you kept a Legilimens from realising that you had anything to hide. Which, coincidentally, is the entire point of Occlumency."

Calista smiled impishly then. "I guess that makes me a prodigy, huh?"

"Well, we knew that already," Severus' half-smile was genuine, though his eyes were still hooded. "You should get some sleep before term starts again tomorrow."

"So I'm off the for hook Saturday, then?"

"I think you've earned a break. This week  _only_  though. And you must tell me immediately if -"

"I know, Dad. I will, I promise. I don't want...  _that_... her... anymore than you do."

Severus nodded, and opened the office door for her. "Good night, then."

"'Night."

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Professor McGonagall put her fingers to her temples as she looked down at Calista's latest attempt to transfigure a pencil into a ruler. This time, it actually did look more or less like a ruler, but it still had a rubber on the end.

"Perhaps this spell just isn't your forte," she said, trying unsuccessfully to keep exasperation out of her voice. "Let's just call this one a wash and move on to something else - the snuffbox, from the exams last year. Here,"

She reached into a small cage behind her desk and placed a white mouse on the table in front of Calista. The mouse squeaked in terror and scrabbled for the edge of the table. Without thinking, Calista aimed her wand and cast a Freezing Charm, stopping the mouse in its tracks.

"See what you can accomplish here. I'm going to check in with Mr. Flint."

Calista shot a look across the classroom at Marcus. He was already on second-year spells; at this rate, he would catch up to his third year peers, and leave Calista as the only student left in Remedial Transfiguration.

Frowning, she waved her wand at the mouse, muttering the incantation. The mouse was replaced with a silver snuffbox - sort of. Just like it had during her end-of-year exams, her snuffbox had whiskers and a tail. Even worse, this one still had a little pink nose that wiggled tauntingly at Calista.

After yet another fruitless hour, Calista was in a rush to put the Transfiguration classroom far behind her. She was halfway down the corridor when Marcus caught up with her, grabbing her elbow. Calista started slightly, covering it with irritation.

"What d'you want?"

"Check it out," Marcus said, holding out a handful of shiny black buttons, "I can't believe these used to be beetles."

Now Calista's feigned irritation turned genuine. "Good for you," she snarled, "Did you chase me all the way down the hall so you could gloat?"

Marcus' brow furrowed in confusion. "N-no, of course not. I'm just really happy I got it is all. And I followed you because I thought you wanted to study together."

She glanced down to the buttons in his fist, then back up at his face, tamping down her foul mood. "Yeah, okay," she said, exhaling. "Let's go to the library. It's never quiet in the common room lately."

"I just need to grab my Potions stuff," Marcus said. "Meet you there?"

Calista nodded, and they parted ways, her changing course to head for the library. When she entered, the library was silent and nearly empty. She saw no one besides for the ubiquitous Madam Pince, who looked exceedingly disappointed to have anyone actually using the library, and the same third-year Ravenclaw that she nearly always saw; he struck as as nearly as ubiquitous as the librarian, these days.

She selected a table near the back of the library, and tossed her Transfiguration book onto it as she sat down. She thought she felt eyes on her, but when she looked up, Madam Pince was occupied inspecting a pile of returned books.

A few minutes later, Marcus rejoined her, thumping his Potions book down onto the table, and earning him a glare from Madam Pince. There was a flurry of motion, suddenly, and when Calista glanced towards it, the Ravenclaw was packing his things up as swiftly as if the librarian's ire had been aimed at  _him_.

"Boot," Marcus growled, inexplicably, and the smaller boy seemed to fumble with his books for a moment, barely catching himself from dropping them at his feet, which surely would have earned him a reprimand from Madam Pince.

"Huh?" Calista asked, as the Ravenclaw disppeared from sight, "What did you say?"

"Nothing. I just can't stand that swotty little wanker. Anyway, should we start with the beetles, or...?"

"We can work on your Potions stuff first," Calista offered, rubbing her eyes tiredly, "I don't know if I can handle any more Transfiguration right this minute."

Marcus flipped open his textbook. "Thanks," he said, sounding relieved, "My dad found out over Christmas break that I'm in danger of being pulled from the Quidditch team if my grades don't pick up, and..." he shook his head, "Dad wants me to play professionally. It wasn't pretty."

Calista looked over at him curiously. "Don't you want to play?"

"Well, yeah, of course," he answered, "I just hate fighting with my dad, y'know?"

"Yeah," she agreed, thinking of her own father. "I know what you mean. Okay, so... what are you having trouble with?"

Marcus laughed ruefully. "Everything. We were doing Shrinking Solutions before the break, and mine turned orange and burned holes through my cauldron."

Calista winced. "That sounds vaguely poisonous, among other things." She reached over his arm to flip the pages in the textbook to the recipe for Shrinking Solution, and ran her finger down the list. "So, it sounds like you used too many rat spleens, or too much leech juice. How much did you use?"

Marcus scratched his head, looking over the page. "I know I only used one rat spleen. I was going to add a second one, just in case, you know? And Professor Snape -" he paused, and his cheeks flushed "Er, sorry, I mean your dad-"

Calista shook her head. "It's fine, you can call him Professor to me. Mostly everyone does anyway."

"Right. So... so I know I didn't put an extra rat spleen in, because I was about to, and Professor Snape was so peeved I thought for sure he was about to hex me for it. Sorry," he added again.

Calista snorted. "Believe me, I know exactly what you mean. The extra rat spleen makes it poisonous though... even the fumes can make you ill. That's sort of why potions have instructions, you know."

"Yeah," Marcus said sheepishly, "I know that now. So... so that means it was the leech juice, then?"

"How much did you add?"

"I dunno, a dash I guess, like it says."

"So, how much is a dash, then?" Calista challenged.

"Er," Marcus said, his cheeks flushing again. "You know, a dash. Like... like this," and he mimed unscrewing a bottle and shaking it upside down several times. "Dash, dash, dash," he explained.

"Oh boy," Calista couldn't help but put her hand to her forehead. "That's... no. A dash is a tiny bit.  _Tiny_. And you should never just pour it out of the bottle."

"But," Marcus said, repeating the gesture."Dash," he said, as he shook the imaginary bottle once. "Dash, dash." he shook it twice more.

"Are you having me on?"

Marcus replied, but Calista didn't hear what he said, because someone else had just walked into the library. A tall, handsome, dark-haired someone in Slytherin robes, and he looked right at Calista and smiled, dazzlingly.

He started walking towards their table, and Calista felt her face grow hot. The wide, bright smile never left his face.

"Clarissa, right?" he said, as he drew close.

"Calista," she said, pushing her hair behind her ears, "Uhm... h-hi, Colin."

"You're Olivia's friend. I remember. I'm looking for Olivia. Would you happen to know where she is?" He sounded strange, maybe a little out of breath. Had he been running?

"Oh," Calista said, flatly, "No, I haven't seen her in hours. Try the common room."

"Right," Colin said, his smile growing even brighter. "Of course. The common room. That's brilliant. I'll go now. Thank you, Clarissa."

"Calista," she corrected again, but he was already halfway across the room.

"That was weird," Marcus said, and Calista started. She had forgotten she was sitting next to him.

"Huh? Oh, it's just... I only met him once before. I guess that's why he didn't remember my name."

"He's a Reserve Chaser, you know. I've talked to him a couple of times at practice, and he's never been that weird before."

"I just... uhm. You know what? I think I - I have to go. Can we... can we finish this another time?"

A look of disappointment flitted across Marcus' face. "Oh. Sure, I guess so. We didn't get to Transfiguration yet, though."

"Another time," Calista said, rushing past him.

"NO RUNNING IN THE LIBRARY!" Madam Pince shrieked, but Calista ignored her and kept going.

Dumbfounded, Marcus looked down at the table, wondering what exactly had just happened. He realized with a jolt that Calista had left her Transfiguration book, and he gathered it up with his own things and left the library.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Days after he and Calista had returned from Malfoy Manor, Severus was still in a foul mood. He had managed, with great effort, to keep it from Calista, but he was positively fuming with Lucius Malfoy.

He had half-expected his school friend to try to read Calista, but being prepared didn't make him any less angry.

_Three bloody times_ , he thought, for the umpteenth time, as he paced through his Potions classroom during the first-year Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw class.

"This is atrocious," he snarled at a Ravenclaw boy whose potion had turned into a thick, sickly green goo, "I stated very clearly that  _four_  horned slugs would suffice. Start over."

And what could he do about it? Precious little, since he couldn't very well reveal to Lucius that Calista could detect and counter Legilimency without raising too many questions he did not want to answer yet.

_Twelve. She's twelve years old, you prick._  He was running out of names to call Lucius in his head.

And why had he felt the need to search her thoughts so many times? Did he distrust Severus suddenly? Or was it just the old Malfoy sense of entitlement that made him 'forget' how deplorable it would be to invade a child's mind?

The bell rang, signalling the end of class, before Severus had assigned any homework. The students practically stampeded to be out of the classroom before he corrected the oversight.

When the classroom was empty, he retreated into his office. He was meant to have office hours after this class, but he magically locked the door behind him anyway.

The worst thing was, he was nearly as angry with himself as he was with Lucius. Severus had brought her there, knowing that exactly what had happened was a possibility, albeit a remote one, he had thought.

The issue wasn't whether she could handle his intrusion, because Severus had correctly believed her strong enough, but it was the fact that she shouldn't have  _had_  to.

He could lay blame for her need for secrets and even for vigilance on Bellatrix, but without his shared acquaintances, she wouldn't have to fear Legilimency attacks from anyone but Bellatrix herself.

This might be the first time that anyone besides himself or Bellatrix had tried to invade her mind, but he knew it would be far from the last time, if the Dark Lord ever returned to power.

In the darkness and isolation of his office, Severus admitted to himself precisely what his worst fear was.

_If_  the Dark Lord ever did return, there was more than enough evidence for him or his followers to question Severus' loyalties. And if they did, they were sure to view his daughter as a rich source of information.

That was the reason, truthfully, that he had let Calista off her Saturday lessons this week. It was easier for someone to pick up thoughts that were about themselves, and he couldn't trust himself to keep these thoughts hidden yet, not from her, and not during an Occlumency lesson.

_Damn you, Lucius_ , he growled inwardly,  _I was not ready to worry about this for a few more years, at least._

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Calista nearly flew into the common room, scanning for a familiar blonde head. There she was, sitting with Portia in front of the fireplace. Their heads were bent together, and when Calista drew close she heard giggling.

"Olivia," she said, blocking their view of the flames, "Have you talked to that fifth-year boy, Colin, today?"

"What? No, I haven't. Why?" Her blue eyes were wide, innocent. Calista's own eyes narrowed.

"I just saw him in the library. He was acting really odd."

Olivia waved her hand and laughed derisively. "Oh, really? You, who've only spoken to him once, believe you're qualified to call his behaviour odd, now?"

Calista scowled. "Yeah, I do. It was odd for anyone."

"Well, I know nothing about it. Why were you talking to him, anyway?"

"He came up to me. He was looking for  _you_ , which was why I asked if you'd-"

Just then, the door to the common room opened, and Colin stumbled in, blinking several times and looking rather lost.

"I must have gotten lost on my way here," he announced to no one in particular, "I nearly wound up in the Potions classroom. Isn't that strange?"

He looked around the common room, and his expression was almost... vacant. Then, his eyes found Olivia and they positively lit up. He broke into another of his overwhelming grins.

"Olivia! Oh, my beautiful darling, I thought I'd never find you."

"Shhhh, Colin, hush!" Olivia shook her head frantically as she rushed to his side. "It's all right, I'm here now. Let's... let's go somewhere else."

"I'll go anywhere," Colin declared, not lowering his voice at all, "As long as it's with you. Can I - can I smell your hair before we go?"

_Oh, shit._  Calista's already pale face completely drained of color, and her head felt suddenly light.  _Ohshitohshitohshit._

"Calista?" Portia sniffed, "Are you all right?"

By the time Calista felt she could move again, Olivia had already hustled Colin out of the common room. She tore after them, slamming the common room door shut behind her, instantly blocking out the rising hum of voices behind her.

"Olivia!" she shouted, catching up to the pair, and grabbed the blonde girl's arm roughly. " _Are you bloody mental?_ " she hissed, eyes wide. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

"Shh!" Olivia's eyes darted toward each end of the corridor Calista had stopped them in.

"You told me that potion was for your parents!"

"Shhh!" Olivia matched Calista's hiss, "Are you trying to get us found out?"

"Olivia," Colin remarked dreamily, "You look so lovely when you're angry."

"I have to fix this," Calista said frantically, "I need to make the antidote, before anyone finds out. Olivia, you have to hide him until I can figure it out."

"Hide him? Are  _you_  mental? I didn't go through all this trouble to  _hide_  him."

Calista's jaw dropped. "Trouble? You think you've gone to trouble?"

Olivia glanced sidelong and Colin, who was reaching reverently for a lock of her hair.

"Calista, calm down," she whispered, "You won't tell anyone, and I won't tell anyone. I'll just say Colin and I got together over the holidays and really hit it off. No one will ever know. Our secret."

"Secret?" Colin interrupted again, "I can't keep you a secret. I need to tell everyone that I'm madly in love with you." He tilted his head back, and shouted to the ceiling. "I'm in love with Olivia Avril!"

"I'm not letting you ruin this, Calista. If you try to, I'll tell everyone you made it to try and make him fall in love with  _you_ , only it didn't work. They'll expel you for sure."

"No one will believe you."

"I think they might," Olivia smiled smugly. "Didn't I ever mention that I purchased the ingredients in your name? Oh - and I took another look at that Potions book you filched from your father's class. It seems you've written 'Mrs. Calista Greengrass' all over the page about Amortentia. That was rather careless of you, don't you think?"

Calista's hand slipped into the pocket of her robes, and her fingers curled around her wand.

"I don't want you to be expelled, Calista," Olivia said quietly, "If no one ever finds out about the potion in the first place, they won't find out who made it."

"Olivia," Calista said desperately, "Look at him. There's no way someone won't figure it out. You've got to get me the ingredients for the antidote before they do."

"Not a chance, Snapelet." She took Colin's arm, sauntering down the corridor with him in tow.

At that moment, Calista knew only one thing, knew it deep down to her core, with every fibre of her being.

_I am so screwed._


	8. Chapter 8

Calista tore out a page from the catalog she'd been frantically flipping through and threw it vengefully across the second-year girls' dormitory. It bounced off the far wall and landed on Olivia's bed. Calista's cat, Yellow, mewed plantively at her from his perch on Calista's pillow. He stretched out a paw and pricked her with a claw, as if reprimanding her for waking him.

It was no use. There was only one way to solve her problem, and that was to get the antidote for the Amortentia she had been stupid enough to make for Olivia - or, rather, clever enough to make. The stupid part had been agreeing to do it in the first place, and Calista was honestly still a little shocked that she'd apparently managed to get the potion right, albeit after several failed attempts.

She patted the cat absently, soothing it back to sleep.

The problem was that the ingredients in the antidote, much like those in the original potion, were not items that were readily available to second-year students. Olivia had gotten her hands on the ingredients for the love potion, but she was refusing to help Calista undo it.

None of the catalogs students were allowed to order from had what she needed, and there was no way she'd find any of them in the stores of ingredients the students were allowed to use in the dungeons.

There was one way Calista could get the ingredients, and when it occurred to her again, she shut it out. No. There was no way she was going to steal them from her father. Firstly, it was completely wrong, and even thinking about it made her feel slightly ill; and secondly, there was no way she'd get away with it. The man knew  _everything_.

The door opened, and Portia and Emily entered the dormitory. "Have you seen Olivia?" Portia asked.

"Not since she shafted me this afternoon," Calista didn't even have the energy to glower. She felt like she was awaiting sentencing.

"Is she still with that Greengrass boy?" Emily wondered, "I don't think that's such a great idea. I mean... he's kind of  _old_. What if she's not ready for... for whatever he wants to do?"

"Oh, I'm only about to get expelled, and I don't even know what my dad's going to do when he finds out. Thanks for asking."

Emily bit her lip, and sat down on the edge of Calista's bed, looking far more earnest than Calista felt like she could handle at the present moment.

"Colin's a Prefect. It would be really bad for both of them if... if something...  _happened_."

"You think I don't  _know_  that? If I can't undo this somehow, Olivia and I are  _both_  going to be fu-"

" _Don't_  say that, Calista, please don't. It's not funny."

"Why are you taking her side, Emily? I already  _asked_  her to help me get the ingredients for an antidote, and she won't help. She said she's going to tell everyone it was all my idea, that  _I_  have some reason to want to give him that stupid potion."

"I'm not taking sides, I just -"

"Want everyone to get along, I know. Save it, I don't care right now." Calista huffed out of the room and into the common room, for no reason other than to get away from her roommates.

She was greeted by a tall, thin girl with brown hair pulled into a ponytail, who looked up from a textbook on her lap.

"Hey Snapelet, what's wrong? You're in your second year, you have no business looking like you just failed all your O.W.L.s."

"Kimberly!" Calista's face filled with relief. "I can't believe I haven't already thought to ask you!"

"Uh-oh. Ask me what?"

Calista sat down next to Kimberly, and glanced around the common room. There were two seventh-year students studying together, but they were at the far end of the room and seemed pretty absorbed.

"I need the ingredients for a potion," Calista whispered, "It's a... a sixth-year potion."

Kimberly's eyebrows arched nearly to her hairline, and then she laughed.

"Of course you do. I shouldn't be surprised. Let me guess... Polyjuice Potion? You don't want to mess with that one, ickle Snapelet, trust me."

"Be quiet," Calista whispered, glancing over at the studying seventh-years. "It's not funny. I need... I need gurdyroot, rue, and kneazle claw."

Kimberly's eyes narrowed, and then widened. "Gurdyroot, rue, kneazle claw... and you've already got wiggenweld twigs and castor oil in your potions kit this year... Calista, why in Merlin's name would you need to make a love potion antidote?"

" _Please_  don't ask. Do you have any?"

"I have gurdyroot and rue, but kneazle claws are used in Veritaserum... you have to get a Professor to sign off on it before they'll deliver it to the school... you must know that. Oh!"

Kimberly's eyes grew wide again, and she snapped her fingers. "I just realised...  _that's_  why Colin Greengrass has been acting so strange, walking around all glassy-eyed... Bloody hell Calista, did you dose him with a love potion?"

" _No_ , I didn't," Calista replied hotly, " _Olivia_  did. But... I made the potion."

"Now why would you go and do a stupid thing like that? Colin's too old for her."

"No kidding. She told me she needed it for her parents."

Kimberly snorted. "And you believed her? I thought you were cleverer than that, Snapelet. Look, it's not really that big of a deal. Most love potions wear off after a few hours, a few days at most. And anyway, as long as it's not Amortentia or something, you probably won't get in too much trouble."

Kimberly's jaw dropped as she observed Calista's expression. "No way. You did  _not_ make Amortentia for your little friend."

"Kimberly, shh!" Calista shot another glance at the seventh-years, who were starting to look a little irritated at the noise.

" _Shit_ , Snapelet. That's both terribly impressive and terribly  _stupid._  What's your dad going to do when he finds out?"

"He can't find out, he just can't. You don't have  _any_ kneazle claws? Aren't you guys making the same antidote this year?"

Kimberly shook her head. "No, Professor Snape took it off the curriculum. We're doing a Draught of Living Death instead, he said that one's been on the exams more lately."

She looked down at her younger friend, and placed her hand on Calista's shoulder. "Listen, I still owe you for that thing with Ethan's sister last year. I can come up with some special research project to do for Snape, okay? I'm in his N.E.W.T. class, so it shouldn't seem that suspicious. I'll say I want to try out a potion I saw in a book, something with kneazle claw, and I'll get him to sign off on it. It's going to take a few days though, for me to come up with something, and for the claws to be delivered. I have Potions on Tuesday, I'll see to it then. But you've got to get your friend to keep away from Colin, and you have to hide him somehow. Walking around the way he has been, it's not going to take long for someone else to figure it out."

"I can't," Calista said, blinking against a sudden stinging sensation in her eyes. "Olivia doesn't want me to undo it. She threatened to tell everyone it was all my idea."

"Wow," Kimberly said, "You really need to find some better friends, kiddo. That one sounds toxic."

"Yeah," Calista replied miserably, "I'll try to remember that in my next life."

Feeling doomed, she left the common room. She couldn't just go to bed like everything was normal, when she was going to be in massive amounts of trouble the next day. For all she knew, she thought miserably, it could be her last night at Hogwarts.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Calista walked through the castle for well over an hour before Professor McGonagall caught sight of her and told her to go back to her common room. She returned to the dungeons, and without thinking about it, wound up in front of her father's office door. It was magically locked, but she had long known how to open it without breaking the spell. She slipped inside, and crossed the room silently to survey the jars and bottles on her father's shelves.

Her eyes lit on each of the necessary ingredients in turn. Gurdyroot, rue... The only thing that wasn't here were the kneazle claws, but she was nearly certain he had some in the workroom below his quarters. If she could just get a few...maybe she  _could_  manage to make the antidote before anyone realised Colin had been dosed...

Her eyes stopped, fixated on a small bottle filled with a clear liquid.

"Love Potion Antidote". It was right there, in her father's familiar handwriting, between "Boil-Cure Potion" and "Re-Ageing Remedy".

She lifted her hand, ran her fingers over the label. It felt rough, dry. Before she could think about it, her fingers wrapped around the bottle. It felt small and cold in her fist. She turned around, took a step towards the door...

Unconsciously, her head turned. She saw her father's desk, and even though it was currently vacant, she could easily picture him sitting there.

She thought of all the times she had been in this office; the arguments, the reprimands, the detentions. And then, of course, there were the times that he had stayed awake into the wee hours of the morning, sitting at this desk and occupying himself with paperwork as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world to be marking essays at three in the morning, so she would feel comfortable confiding in him.

Her heart sped up, and her hands shook, because what she had to do next would not be easy. She tightened her hold on the bottle in her fist, turned, stepped forward, and put her hand on the door knob.

She knew that opening this door could not be undone; she was making her choice, and if it was the wrong one, it would be too late to turn back.

Taking a breath, she turned the knob and pushed the door open.

"Dad," she said, stepping into his study, her voice thick with unshed tears, "I did something I really, really shouldn't have done, and I need your help."

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Severus was reading a wordy and analytical essay in  _Potions Digest_  in his study to help himself over the worst of his ire with Lucius Malfoy. It never failed; something about challenging his mind, feeding his hunger for knowledge, always helped him focus.

He glanced up at the enchanted hourglass on his wall. It was getting late. When he finished this essay, he judged it would be time to get some sleep.

He finished the article, and was making note of several of the citations to research later, when he heard the door to his quarters swing open and then click shut.

Calista stepped into his study, one hand balled into a fist. She looked pale, nervous, and about ten seconds from tears.

"Dad," she said, and he could hear those tears in her voice, "I did something I really, really shouldn't have done, and I need your help."

He had already gotten to his feet the second she came into sight looking so distraught. After her declaration, he set down his copy of  _Potions Digest_  and the parchment he'd been writing on, and crossed the few steps between them.

"What happened? Are you all right?" He reached for her trembling hands, but she wrenched them away. He thought he felt an object in her right hand before she did.

"No. Yes. I mean, I - I'm all right, but I... you're going to be livid with me, and I might get expelled... I don't know what else to do." He could barely make out her words, her voice was so thick with anxiety. Her eyes glittered, and she bit her lip. He didn't need legilimency to know exactly how she felt just then.

He moved some books from the other chair in his study, motioned her to sit. "Calm down. Tell me what happened."

She sat down on the edge of the chair, and trained her eyes on the floor.

"Olivia convinced me to make a love potion for her Christmas gift. She... she told me it was for her parents, t-that they were fighting all the time, and I..."

She took a deep breath, let it go, and met his gaze. He could see the naked fear in her eyes; whether she was incapable of hiding it, or was choosing not to, he couldn't say, and at the moment, the distinction didn't seem important.

"She got me all the ingredients, and I... I made  _Amortentia_  in a cauldron in my wardrobe. She g-gave it to a fifth-year boy, and-"

"You did  _what?_ " Severus interrupted, certain he had misheard her.

A tear slid down her face, and she turned away, brushing at her cheek roughly. It took her a couple of seconds to recover. "I brewed Amortentia, and she gave it to Colin Greengrass. Now she says she's going to tell everyone  _I_ dosed him with it if I interfere."

A moment of silence stretched out between them before she felt brave enough to look at him again. She opened her fist, showing him the bottle.

"I took this off the shelf in your office, just now. I know what it looks like, but I didn't steal it. I couldn't."

Severus stepped towards her, and plucked the bottle from her fingers. "Stay here. I'll be back shortly."

He felt her eyes on him as he left his quarters, bottle in hand. He took a path directly to the entrance to the Slytherin common room, spoke the password to the stone wall, and walked inside. A quick glance around indicated there were only two students in the common room - a boy and a girl, who were snogging very enthusiastically in front of the fireplace.

When Severus entered, the boy glanced up at the noise; he saw the boy's eyes widen, and the two sprang apart, both of them turning, wide-eyed, towards him.

"P-Professor Snape! Is something wrong?"

"Miss Avery, Mr. Briggs," he greeted them, as if he had only walked in to see them studying. "You have classes tomorrow morning, I believe? Perhaps it's time to call it a night."

"Of course, sir," Kimberly said, and she couldn't be out of his sight fast enough.

"Actually, Mr. Briggs," he said, almost as an afterthought, "If you could check in on the fifth-year dormitory and rouse Mr. Greengrass for me, I would appreciate it."

Ethan nodded, his lank blond hair falling forward and partially obscuring his flushed face. "Of course, Professor."

A moment later, Ethan returned, holding Colin's elbow. The latter smiled vacantly, despite being roused from sleep. "Hello, Professor. It's a lovely evening, isn't it?"

"Is he... is he all right, Professor?" Ethan asked, eyeing Colin with raised eyebrows.

"Good night, Mr. Briggs."

Ethan took his cue and went to his own dormitory, casting only a single glance backwards.

Severus regarded the teen carefully, ascertaining the effects of the potion. He cast a Silencing Spell around the two of them, in case any of the other Slytherin students were still awake.

"How are you feeling?" he prodded.

"Oh, very well, thanks. Although, I am a bit lonely now that you mention it. I haven't seen my darling Olivia in... how long have I been sleeping, sir?"

"I don't know," Severus answered mildly, "Is that all? You don't feel ill, or clammy, or faint?"

"Goodness no," Colin answered. "Professor Snape, sir? Do you suppose Olivia would mind if I woke her?"

"I don't think that's the wisest of ideas."

"Oh." Colin's smile faded for the first time since he had entered the common room. "That's a pity. It would be wonderful just to gaze at her beautiful face again."

Severus sighed. "It doesn't appear as if you're experiencing any side effects, at least. Here, Mr. Greengrass. Drink this." He uncapped the tiny bottle, and handed it to the youth.

Colin downed it without even glancing at the label. Well, that saved them both some time, at least. Severus watched, as the dopey, lovesick expression on Colin's face slowly melted into one of horror.

"Oh no," he moaned, "What happened? I... I can't believe I've been acting like such an idiot all day. My friends must think I've gone mental. And - oh my god, I can't believe this."

"My apologies, Mr. Greengrass. I need to know to what extent you've been - ah, involved - with Miss Avril before I can let you return to your dormitory."

Colin brought his hand to his face and shook his head. "I'm so embarrassed. I... I kissed a second year. What  _happened_  to me?"

"The second year, Miss Avril," Snape repeated, "I'm afraid I must know, did you do anything else with her?"

Colin flushed a furious shade of red. "Of course I didn't, Professor. I can't even believe I kissed her."

Severus nodded sympathetically, satisfied that Colin was telling him the truth. "I'll let you return to sleep, then. Try not to worry too much. You aren't the first and you won't be the last student to be slipped a love potion. You'd be well advised to keep a closer eye on your food and drink in the future, though."

Colin nodded, face still scarlet. "Thanks, Professor," he managed, before ducking his head and returning to his dormitory.

Severus slipped the empty bottle into his robes, and left the common room.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

When Severus returned to his study, Calista was still sitting on the edge of her armchair, hands clasped in her lap.

"Mr. Greengrass is back to himself, although he is terribly embarrassed. All three of you are very fortunate that nothing worse happened."

Calista rose, relief flooding her features. "Thank you... I know I'm in trouble, I know you have to tell the Headmaster. I feel so stupid, I never should've let her talk me into it."

Severus regarded her solemnly.

"I cannot even tell you what shocks me more - that you managed to correctly brew Amortentia, that you evidently felt that doing so and giving it to Miss Avril would be a good idea, or that you actually came to me for help instead of trying to hide this from me and fix it yourself."

"I-"

Severus held up his hand, stopping her. "Three things are going to happen. Firstly, you are going to have private Potions lessons every week, whether you want them or not, after your regular class. If you're going to insist on thwarting the rules and attempting dangerous potions, you're going to do it in my classroom, under my eye.

"Secondly, I am going to write to Miss Avril's mother and inform her that her daughter has been procuring forbidden Potions ingredients with the intention of slipping love potions to older boys.

"And thirdly..."

Severus reached out, tapped his finger under her chin. The gesture was gentle, and Severus searched her face when she lifted it. Her relief and regret were both plain on her face. His expression softened.

"You're not going to be expelled. We are, however, going to have a conversation very soon about learning when to say no to your friends."

Calista blinked, unsure she had heard correctly.

"Wait. What about... detentions, or an essay about all the things that could've gone wrong? You're not just going to let me get away with this, are you?"

Severus placed his hands on her shoulders and smiled - there was something about it that was almost indulging. "As a matter of fact, I am."

"What? Why?" Suspicion replaced confusion.

"To be perfectly frank, I'm letting you off because as dangerous and ill-advised as your actions were, I'm pleased that you came to me when you realised you were in over your head. And I doubt you'll be making forbidden potions in your wardrobe again, after this?"

Calista shook her head vehemently, "Definitely not," she said, sincere.

Severus lifted his hands from her shoulders. He knew it was getting late, but she was as emotionally open as he could ever remember seeing her, and he was finding it difficult to send her away now. Perhaps it was only a remnant of her nerves, but Severus hoped that in conjunction with her coming to him tonight in the first place, it was something else.

He felt certain there was a meaningful conversation they should be able to have now, about trust and opening up to each other, but he didn't know how to start it.

Still. How many opportunities had there been like this, where she actually seemed receptive, open? Only a handful, and his uncertainty had caused him to waste each one of them.

"I'm glad you didn't steal the antidote from my office," he said, and then winced inwardly. Probably not the most auspicious start.

"When I grabbed it, I thought I was going to," she said softly, and then, after a pause: "Do you remember when I was younger, and I used to sit in your office and draw pictures, and you put them all up on the walls?"

"I do."

"They were awful," Calista said. "I knew they were, too. Sometimes I made them bad on purpose, just to see if you'd still say they were good and hang them up. You always did."

"That's because I didn't know they were supposed to be cats," he said, and he was rewarded with a small smile. He motioned for her to sit down again.

She hesitated, and there was a moment where Severus feared that simply acknowledging the fact that they were having a real conversation would cause her to end it. But she did sit down again, curling her legs up onto the seat. Severus leaned against the doorframe, facing her.

She was quiet for several minutes, and Severus used the time to consider his next words.

"Aside from myself, you are the only person in the castle that can open my office door without breaking the spell-lock on it. I have it set up that way on purpose, so you can find me if you need me, or even hide if you need some time away from your peers."

He paused, and then: "During Occlumency lessons, I only view the contents at the surface of your mind. I test your barriers beyond that, but I never attempt to see what's behind them, because you trust me not to. If I betrayed that trust, then you would be in your rights to be furious with me, but how else would you feel?"

She looked over at him; the light in the hall behind him was brighter than the light in the study, so she could not see much of his features.

"I'd feel... awful," she said, her voice small. "I think I'd feel like... like I couldn't trust anyone."

"It would essentially be stealing from you. I won't ever do that to you, Calista, and I hope that you would never do that to me."

She moved her arm, wiped her palm across her cheek, attacking a tear that he hadn't even seen yet.

"I won't," she said, and she took a breath before adding, "I think that's what I feel the worst about. That, for a second, I had the bottle in my hand, and I didn't know what I was going to do with it."

Severus nodded.

"Then I don't think we need to discuss it anymore."

He tried another small smile, watched her school her face into composure. She took a couple of deep breaths, and when one of them was still shuddery, she chuckled darkly. "I don't know what's with me tonight."

"It's been quite a night," he said, leaving his post in the doorway. "You can sleep here tonight, if you want to. I'll wake you early enough to go back to your dormitory and get ready before class."

Calista nodded and rose from her chair. She didn't leave the room immediately, though; instead, she paused right in front of Severus and looked up at him. For a moment, they seemed to hover in front of each other, both of them toying with the idea of giving the other a hug, but neither of them quite committing.

"Thanks," Calista said, ending the moment. She managed a tired smile, and then slipped past him, out of the room.


	9. Chapter 9

The next morning, Calista persuaded her father to have breakfast sent up to his quarters from the kitchen, and they ate together. She slipped back to her dormitory when she guessed her roommates would be eating breakfast in the Great Hall, and changed into her school robes.

When she arrived in the Potions classroom, she took a seat next to George Spratt, an overweight Slytherin boy who usually had an empty seat on either side of him because of an unfortunate body odor problem. She opened the text at random, pretending to read the instructions for a Hair-Raising Potion. Students streamed in, and her father took his place at the front of the classroom. All too soon, Olivia stormed into the classroom, flanked by Portia and Emily.

Olivia drew up to George's side and thumped her cauldron down on the table in front of him.

"Move it, Fat Spratt," she commanded, and Calista rolled her eyes when he obeyed, carrying his things to the seat Calista normally sat in. Olivia slid into his vacated chair, and aimed a ferocious glare at Calista.

" _What did you do?_ " she hissed, just as the bell signalling the start of class rang. "Colin's been avoiding me all morning. I warned you! If you've ruined this -"

"Silence," Severus commanded, eyes sweeping across the classroom; they paused for a fraction of a second on Olivia and Calista.

"We are brewing Pepperup Potion today," he announced brusquely, "I am told the hospital wing is in short supply, so all those who make it  _correctly_  will bottle it for use. You will need to pay very close attention once your potion is in the simmering stage, as it will be ruined if the powdered bicorn horn is allowed to settle at the bottom of the cauldron."

Calista set about preparing her potion, doing her best to ignore Olivia's glowering beside her. She filled her cauldron about a quarter of the way with water, lit a flame beneath it. While it heated, she began untangling bits of knotgrass, so they wouldn't clump together in the potion.

"What did you do?" Olivia asked again, in a vicious whisper. When Calista didn't answer, she 'accidentally' knocked a pile of Calista's things onto the floor. Severus looked over at the sound, and she quickly made a show of helping to pick them up.

"Miss Avril, Mr. Weasley, switch seats for the remainder of the class," he said.

"But Professor-" Olivia began.

"That's not fair sir, Percy didn't do anything!" Oliver Wood protested.

"I don't recall inviting a class discussion," he intoned smoothly.

Neither of them looked at all pleased, but they did as they were told. Percy sat next to Calista, eyeing her warily.

Calista added her knotgrass carefully to her cauldron as Percy set his up again, laying his ingredients out neatly as his water heated.

Without the distraction of a fuming Olivia next to her, Calista relaxed into the familiar rhythm of brewing her potion. She and Percy worked side-by-side in an unexpectedly companionable silence, both cauldrons simmering nicely, precisely the right colour.

Until, that is, halfway through the class, when Portia took an extra fistful of knotgrass and dumped it into Percy's cauldron when his attention was focused on powdering his bicorn horn. Calista saw the motion, turned her head and locked eyes with Portia just as the last of the knotgrass slipped into Percy's cauldron.

Percy missed Portia's interference, but he did notice his potion turning dark, paste-like. His face flushed full of colour as he abandoned his bicorn horn to stir the cauldron frantically.

Professor Snape walked by at this precise moment, raising an eyebrow at Percy's frenzied motions. "No amount of stirring is going to fix that, Mr. Weasley." he waved his wand, clearing the contents of Percy's cauldron. "Begin again." the professor's eyes shot up to the clock on the wall; there were a scant ten minutes left to the class period. "You will remain after class to finish, and be sure to add the  _correct_  amount of knotgrass this time."

Percy's face was bright red, and his expression was sad, embarrassed, wounded. Calista thought, with a jolt, that he looked much the way she had felt when Olivia had threatened to tell everyone the love potion was all Calista's doing… in fact, he looked the way she felt at almost everything Olivia had ever done. She looked over her shoulder across the room, and saw Olivia grinning wickedly at Portia. She heard Portia choke on a barely concealed snigger behind her. A familiar burning feeling of injustice swirled through her veins. She hated both of them, Olivia and Portia, and the way they always thought they could do whatever they wanted to other people.

"Percy added the right amount," Calista was faintly surprised to hear herself announcing, loud enough to carry across the room, "Portia sabotaged it when he wasn't looking. I saw her."

Silence fell over the classroom for a fraction of a minute. Then Professor Snape's voice cut through the silence, soft and knifelike at the same time. "I see. In that case, Mr. Weasley, you're off the hook. Miss MacNair, on the other hand, you will stay after class and brew an extra batch for the hospital wing to make up for the one you so casually ruined."

Moments before the bell, Calista finished her own potion, and put the flame beneath her cauldron out. She walked to a small table at the front of the classroom, where her father had laid out flasks for them to fill. She grabbed four, took them back to her station, where Percy was putting his own supplies away. She set the flasks down, took a spouted ladle, and set to filling the first one, careful not to spill a drop.

She felt the presence of someone at her shoulder, and stiffened; when she stopped pouring to look up, it was Percy, holding his own ladle. It was an older, chipped version of hers, but otherwise identical. "I'll help," Percy said, as the classroom bell rang out. Other students scrambled to gather their things and exit the classroom, except for Portia, who sat glowering in her chair, and Oliver Wood, who lingered in the doorway, eyes on Percy.

Calista shrugged awkwardly, and slid one of the flasks towards Percy. Briefly, the only sound was the gentle sloshing of the potion against the sides of the glass flasks; then Percy swallowed audibly and spoke again, hesitantly. "Thanks for telling Professor Snape what happened."

Calista vigorously stuffed a cork into the flask she had just filled. "I just hate them getting away with being arrogant prats," she muttered. Far more carefully, Percy corked a flask as well.

"Aren't you and Portia friends?" his tone was still careful, uneasy, as though he were expecting her to redirect her anger on him at any moment.

"No." she answered shortly, filling the last flask. Oliver tapped his foot in the doorway, aiming a meaningful (and impatient) look at Percy.

"Right. Well, I've got to go… er, thanks again, Calista."

She nodded, but Percy had already turned away, gathering his things and leaving with Oliver. She picked up the four flasks and carried them to the front of the room, where her father had been watching her exchange with Percy. She set the flasks on his desk.

"D'you want me to stay or come back later for my private lesson?"

Severus glanced over her shoulder, and Calista followed his gaze; Portia sat glumly in front of her cauldron, half-heartedly grounding a fresh bicorn horn. She felt Calista's eyes on her, narrowed her own into a glare for the fraction of a second it took her to realise that Severus was looking at her too; then she hurriedly looked down at her potion.

"Come back in an hour; I expect Miss Macnair to be nearly finished by then." He lowered his voice, gave her a wry smile. "I think we'll make a batch of love potion antidote. My supply seems to be depleted."

Color filled her cheeks, and her eyes flashed; Severus bit back a dark chuckle.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

"Guess what?" Marcus practically bellowed, barging into the library, seemingly oblivious to the silence he was disrupting. A nearby table of Hufflepuffs started whispering among themselves, with pointed glances in his direction, and a stack of books on a study table across the way slid purposefully to the left, pushed aside by the resident third-year Ravenclaw, as if that could somehow restore the hush.

Madam Pince cleared her throat purposefully, looking very much prepared to eject the new entry if necessary; Marcus lowered his voice by a fraction, as he breezed right by the Ravenclaw's stack of books to slide into the seat opposite Calista.

"I finally got my Shrinking Solution to come out right," he said, grinning, "You were right, it _was_ too much leech juice."

"Shh," she reminded him, as Madam Pince's glower intensified, "I'm not surprised. I told you that you were using far too much."

"I remember you said a dash was only a tiny bit, so I just pretended it said 'drop', only I used big drops."

"A dash is an eighth of a teaspoon," Calista said, "It's listed in the index of the textbook. Although I guess a 'big drop' works too, on potions that aren't so sensitive."

"Hang on, if it's an eighth of a teaspoon, then why doesn't the book just  _say_  'an eighth of a teaspoon'?"

Calista shrugged, and stared down at her open Transfiguration book.

"Hey, are you and Olivia fighting?" Marcus asked curiously, "I haven't seen you together much lately."

"We're not 'fighting'. We're just not friends."

"Oh, right. Are you doing that girl thing where you stop being friends for awhile, then make up and go shopping together, or whatever?"

Calista raised her eyes and glared across the table at Marcus; he was grinning, teasingly.

" _No_ ," she said, gritting her teeth, "I'm doing that thing where I decide not to hang around with spoiled, stupid prats anymore."

Marcus nodded, as if his suspicions had been confirmed. "I knew it was that girl thing. You people are weird with that. I bet it's about  _Colin_ , isn't it? He was in here acting all mental that day, and now you and Olivia are fighting. You both  _fancy_  him, huh?"

There was something like derision that twisted at Marcus' last question; Calista barely registered it. She felt her face get hot, clenched her fists under the table.

"It's not a ' _girl thing_ '," she said forcefully, with precisely the same note of derision Marcus had used, though she didn't notice. "We're not friends. Period. And I don't  _fancy_  anyone. Now, are you going to help me with this stupid spell or not?" She slammed her Transfiguration book closed, and the breeze from the cover snapping down over the pages riffled both their hair.

"All right, all right," Marcus said, shaking his head with a faint smirk that annoyed Calista. "I'm just taking the piss."

He reached into his robes and pulled out a little white mouse by its tail, placing it on the table. "Here, I nicked this from the stables for you to practise with." The mouse scrabbled around on the table, and as soon as Marcus released its tail, it rocketed for the edge of the table. Marcus lunged for it, while Calista went for her wand, intending to cast a freezing spell. She couldn't get a clear shot, though; the mouse slipped through Marcus' fingers and wound up, somehow, in her lap. It squeaked and scrabbled, panicked, and when Calista reached down to scoop it up, it clawed at her hand.

She readied her wand in one hand while the mouse squirmed in the other, and plopped it down on the table again, swiftly casting the spell before it could get away again. The mouse sat in the middle of the table, next to Calista's textbook, with rodent-fear frozen on its face.

"Okay," Calista exhaled, pushing her hair out of her face. She twirled her wand, rehearsing the spell in her mind before casting it.

Marcus watched her, and reached out across the table, touching her free hand. She yanked it back instinctively. "You got scratched, there." Marcus said, and Calista brought her hand up, glanced at it. There were a few scratches from the mouse's sharp little claws, but she shrugged, wiping her hand absently on her robes and concentrating on the spell.

She waved her wand, pronounced the incantation carefully, and produced a very anxious-looking snuffbox with whiskers and a long pink tail.

"I've never seen a girl act so… ungirly about a mouse," Marcus said, "Most of 'em would've started screaming if it landed on them."

Calista made a comically incredulous face at him. "It's a mouse, not a dragon," she said, before turning a scowl on her mouse-box. She lifted her wand to turn it back.

"Hang on," Marcus said, eyeing it thoughtfully. "Can you just… get rid of the tail and whiskers?"

"Er, no," Calista said, "That's what my whole problem is, remember?"

"I mean right now," he said quickly, "Before you change it back. If you got it partway transfigured by casting the spell once, maybe you can finish it by casting again."

She heard a small sound to her right that was suspiciously similar to a snort of laughter. She could hardly see around the stack of books at the Ravenclaw's table, but she _did_ see that the Hufflepuffs were still whispering. She narrowed her eyes, and cast a glare in their direction, and then, looking dubious, she returned her attention to the frozen mouse and cast again.

Precisely nothing happened.

"I hate Transfiguration," she said acidly.

Marcus scratched his head. "It seems like it should have done  _something_ , doesn't it?"

She shrugged, and reversed the spell, reverting the mouse back to its original form. "I have no idea, obviously."

"Yeah," Marcus said, more forcefully, "It definitely should do something. When I was practicing the beetle-into-button spell, one of my buttons still had eyes one time, so I cast the spell again when McGonagall wasn't looking, and the eyes went away."

Calista tried the spell again; the mouse-box returned. "Maybe I've already reached my terminal Transfiguration ability," she snarked.

"Nah," Marcus said, missing her sarcasm, and without a hint of shame, "You're plenty cleverer than me. If I got it to work, you will too."

"At this point, I think I have a better chance of becoming captain of the Quidditch team."

Marcus grinned. "Speaking of which, when are you going to come down to the pitch with me?"

"Since when is that a plan? I hate flying, remember?"

"How can you hate flying? It's amazing! It's the only reason I even care about school, really. You can't sign to a Quidditch team if you don't finish wizarding school."

A tiny sound again, and she cast an automatic scowl towards the chattering Hufflepuffs;  _was_ someone sniggering, or was it only her imagination?

"I'll keep that in mind," she said dryly. She sounded very much like her father.

He cocked his head, eyeing her. "You're not… are you afraid of flying?"

"No!" her face flushed, and she stabbed her wand angrily in the direction of the mouse again, completing another half-transfiguration.

"Ahem!" Madam Pince called disapprovingly, stepping around from behind the checkout desk, "Quiet!"

"But," Marcus said gamely, ignoring the librarian entirely, "You'd get to hit things. Something tells me you'd like that."

Madam Pince was advancing on them now, and Calista just barely had time to hide the mouse by angling her Transfiguration book, and didn't have time to warn Marcus.

"Out, Flint!" The librarian pursed her lips, pointing a crooked finger towards the door. "Until you can understand the definition of the word 'quiet'!"

"Well, now you're the one that's yelling," Marcus began, but he stopped when he saw the look on Madam Pince's face. "Erm, I mean, yeah, guess I'll be going. You look done for the day anyway, eh, Calista?"

"I guess." Calista shrugged, defeated. "It's not like I'm getting anywhere, anyway."

"See you later," Marcus said, picking up his Potions book, and getting to his feet before the librarian dragged him up bodily, "At the Quidditch pitch, maybe?"

" _Definitely_ not."

"We'll see," Marcus grinned over his shoulder, as he was ushered out, and then tried to look as innocent and quiet as possible while Madam Pince turned back to watch her, evidently ready to eject her, as well, if she was given the slightest reason.

Nearly as soon as the librarian's back was turned, she heard a small sound  _again_ , and she turned, scowl in place, ready to give those blasted Hufflepuffs a piece of her mind --

The stack of books at the next table slid a few inches to the right, and a bespectacled face peered at her, cautiously.

"Erm," the Ravenclaw boy whispered, low enough to evade the librarian's notice and inevitable wrath, "Ex-excuse me, I... erm..."

"Yes?" Calista practically hissed, eyes narrowing, as she found a new suspect for the small sounds she'd been hearing, "Is there a problem?"

The Ravenclaw shook his head very quickly. "No, no, nothing like that," he said, still keeping his voice quite low, "It's just - I overheard you, saying you had a problem with Transfiguration, and -" the boy swallowed, as Calista felt her temper rise. He  _had_ been the one laughing at her, hadn't he?

"Flint's g-got the completely wrong idea," he went on quickly, stumbling over his words slightly in his apparent effort to get them out, "About the - about recasting. It doesn't... I mean, it won't... that is,  _I'm_ quite good at the snuffbox transformation, and I could-"

_Well._ Another student who now knew that she was an idiot in Transfiguration, and wanted to show off that he  _wasn't_.

"Bully for you," she said coldly, gathering her things to leave as quickly as she could, "I suppose that means you'll never be in short supply of snuffboxes."

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Having officially declared herself once again out of Olivia's clique, Calista resorted to her old habit of tagging after Kim Avery and her friends in the sixth year. They teased her quite a bit - at least, the boys did - but all in all, it was a marked improvement over the way they had competed to gross her out last year. Besides, she knew what to expect from them, and she found that a relief. She'd take their (mostly) good-natured teasing over Olivia's hot-and-cold friendship any day.

Besides, she was starting to realise that Kim was right; Olivia was a toxic friend, and nothing good had ever come for her from that relationship. Of course, Calista following her group around like a lost puppy was probably not what Kim had in mind when she'd said so.

There were places she couldn't follow them, too; namely, Hogsmeade. Third years and over could go with a signed permission form at certain weekends, and though Calista had gone with her father several times, she wasn't allowed to go by herself.

A few weeks after she had become an accessory to their group whether they welcomed it or not, another of the Hogsmeade weekends came around.

"Reckon they'll serve me if I lie and say I'm of age?" Conor Quinn was asking, as the group sat outside next to the lake. Calista had found them out there after her extra Potions lesson one Friday afternoon.

"Not likely," Peter Boyle snorted, "They're real strict about that in Hogsmeade. I've gotten beer with my dad loads of times, but they'll never give it to me at the Three Broomsticks."

"Maybe that's because you act like such a bloke in front of Madam Rosmerta," Kim teased, imitating a dopey, love-sick expression. The others laughed, except for Peter, who blushed furiously, and Calista, who wrinkled her nose quizzically.

"Wait, you fancy Madam Rosmerta?" she questioned.

"No I don't," Peter muttered, just as Kim, Ethan, and Conor all answered to the opposite.

"Why?"

"I don't fancy her, she's just… nice," Peter said lamely.

"Ha," Kim crowed, "He does too fancy her, and it's because of her big -"

"Come off it, Kim! I do  _not_  fancy her."

"Actually," Conor guffawed, "Now that you mention it, I think I might fancy her too."

"That's daft," Calista interjected, "She's a  _grownup_."

Conor raised his eyebrows. "Uh, yeah. That's kind of the point."

"Well I think the whole idea is daft, anyway," she declared, "I don't fancy  _anyone._ "

All of them snickered at that.

"You don't yet," Ethan said, "But I bet you will. Next year, probably."

"She already does," Kim said, "Remember when Colin Greengrass was all mooney-eyed and lovesick a few weeks ago? Our little Snapelet dosed him with a love potion."

Calista's face turned as red as Peter's had been a moment ago. "That's not true! I don't fancy him! I gave that potion to Olivia, she's the one who dosed him with it."

Kim waved her hand. "Semantics," she said, grinning wickedly. "Look, I'm not saying I blame you. He's plenty handsome, if you're into that pretty-boy thing."

Ethan's grin faded suddenly; he looked positively sulky, until Kim clarified, "Which I'm not. But you and your little friend aren't the only girls at school who are."

Calista was not liking the direction of this conversation; she backtracked it to safer ground. "I made Amortentia," she blurted, hoping it would significantly impress them so they'd stop teasing her.

They looked at her, all but Kim disbelieving. "No way," Ethan said, "You're too young."

"Well, if she's making it up, she committed herself to it, because she was asking me for kneazle claw for the antidote." Kim supplied.

"I did make it," Calista said, unable to keep from swelling up a bit with pride. "In a cauldron in my wardrobe."

"Wow. Not bad," Conor said, "But do something more interesting next time, like Polyjuice Potion. If you're going to get in trouble it might as well be worth it."

"Yeah," Kim agreed, lighting up with a mischievous grin. "You could use it to turn into Conor, you could borrow his Quidditch robes, and then you could sneak into the locker room after practise and watch Colin change."

Calista deflated more quickly than a balloon that had been stepped on by Hagrid, the half-giant gamekeeper. She made an exaggeratedly disgusted face, sticking her tongue out and shaking her head rapidly.

"Ugh, no way. I don't want to see  _that_!"

"Not me!" Conor said, even louder than Calista, "The whole team'll think I'm some kind of pansy all of a sudden."

"Even more reason," Kim said, laughing so hard that her words were strained. The rest of them sniggered, except Conor, who had gone nearly the same shade of red as Calista.

"Seriously, Kim. You better not get the idea to help her pull something like that. I don't care if you're a girl, I'll deck you."

Kim snorted. "As if you could. I'd have you turned into a ferret before you could finish even  _thinking_  about it."

"Turn into Marcus Flint," Conor said, shaking his head, "Everyone on the team takes the piss out of him anyway, for being the youngest."

"I am  _not_  making Polyjuice Potion to turn into anyone," Calista clarified, "Firstly, because-"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever, we're just teasing." Ethan waved his hand, apparently tired of tormenting both her and Conor.

"What if I drank, like, fifteen butterbeers? Think I could get drunk that way?" Conor earnestly picked up the thread of their prior conversation after a beat of silence.

"Not before you exploded," Peter guffawed. "Maybe we can nick some firewhiskey off the shelf when Madam Rosmerta's not looking."

Calista listened for a place in their conversation to contribute, but she couldn't go to Hogsmeade, had no interest in getting drunk, and had learned her lesson as far as commenting on Madam Rosmerta. She faded into the background of their group, until she grew tired of being unnoticed, and stood up to head back inside.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Calista hadn't been lying when she'd told Marcus she had no interest in Quidditch or flying in general, but after her Occlumency lesson on Saturday, she felt so burnt out and listless that she'd found herself heading in the direction of the Quidditch pitch anyway.

She was exhausted from the strain of the lesson, to be sure, but she was also awake, restless from exerting so much mental energy, and she felt the need to be somewhere, do something. The key was to be somewhere and do something far enough away from her father that he couldn't spring any more surprise Occlumency tests on her, because she didn't think she had the energy to keep more than a basic defence intact.

There was a team practising on the pitch; they were wearing regular Muggle clothes instead of Hogwarts robes, so she wasn't sure which team until she got into the stands.

There was a cluster of other students watching the practise; she saw the flash of Percy Weasley's red hair among them, so she supposed it must be the Gryffindor team that was practising. She squinted; it was. She could see his brother Charlie now, flying around in slow circles and looking for what even Calista knew must be the Snitch.

She didn't really have any interest in watching the Gryffindor team practise, but she'd feel foolish turning back now after she'd walked all the way here, so she sat down a fair distance from the other students, thinking too late that she should've at least brought a textbook with her, or something.

They were all very good fliers, from what Calista could see. Charlie Weasley was flying slower than the rest of them, but he always managed to dodge gracefully whenever one of his teammates sent a bludger hurtling towards him. The keeper, a seventh year whom Calista didn't really know, was flitting back and forth across the goalposts, and the rest of the team zipped around so fast that Calista could barely keep track of who was who.

It was kind of visually interesting, she supposed, the way they wove in and out of each others' paths, confident on their brooms. Of course, she didn't have a choice but to be interested, since she had brought nothing else to occupy herself with. She had thought maybe the Slytherin team would be practising, and at least she knew Marcus. Maybe, if she had come to watch them practise, he would stop bothering her about it.

Then again, she reflected, if the Slytherin team were practising, then Olivia and her cronies would probably be here too, so maybe it was best that it  _wasn't_  the Slytherins.

"Calista. Oy, Calista." she heard her name faintly behind her and to the left; she looked over her shoulder, and saw Percy waving to looked back at him blankly. He was waving at her, right? Of course, he had said her name, so there was that… she lifted her hand, awkwardly returning his wave.

"Come sit with us," he called, and she looked all around, to make sure there was no one else around that he could be talking to. There wasn't. Shrugging, she stood and navigated her way through the bleachers, drawing up a row in front of the other spectators.

Most of them were Gryffindors, but there were a few Hufflepuffs and at least one Ravenclaw as well. There were, she noted, no other Slytherins.

"No sense in watching all by yourself," Percy said. Now that she was close to him, he looked as uncertain and uncomfortable as she felt. Maybe he hadn't really wanted her to join them. Well, she was here now and the only thing more awkward than sitting with them would be walking away again. She climbed back another row and perched gingerly at the edge of their group.

"You're not here to spy for the Slytherin team, are you?" Oliver Wood asked her suspiciously, leaning over Percy and an older Hufflepuff girl with a shock of unnaturally blue hair.

"If the Slytherin team was going to send someone to spy for them, I'm thinking they'd pick someone who actually knows all the rules," Calista replied testily.

"How can you not know the rules to Quidditch?" Oliver challenged scornfully, "It's only the most important sport in the wizarding world."

"How can you not know how to make a basic potion without blowing up half the classroom?" Calista retorted.

"Hey now," the girl with blue hair said mildly, "Blowing up the potions classroom is something that can happen to anyone, right?"

Calista opened her mouth and then shut it again. Well, she hadn't actually blown anything up, but there were a few times when she was younger that she would have if her father hadn't caught her mistakes in time. She shrugged noncommittally instead.

"So what  _do_  you know about Quidditch?" the girl asked curiously.

"Well," Calista said, "I know that Beaters get to hit things."

The girl laughed. She had a wide, pretty face that opened up when she was smiling or laughing. "Good answer," she said, and stuck her hand out in introduction. "I'm Nymphadora Tonks, but don't actually call me Nymphadora on pain of death. Tonks is fine."

Calista shook her hand tentatively; the girl had a firm handshake. She seemed pretty no-nonsense in general, aside from the blue hair. "I'm Calista Snape," she said, and watched Tonks' eyes widen slightly.

"I just want to say that none of my explosions in Potions class were intentional," she said quickly, giving Calista a sneaking suspicion that maybe some of them were.

"Is that how you made your hair blue?" Calista asked, "With a potion?"

"Nope," Tonks replied smugly. "Watch this."

She appeared to be concentrating for a second, and then her hair went from a short, spiky blue style to shoulder-length and bubblegum pink. She concentrated again, and her hair was purple. The third time, she changed her nose into a shape that resembled a bird's beak.

Calista laughed. "That's brilliant," she said, "So you're a metamorphmagi?"

Tonks nodded, as her hair went back to the choppy blue style it had been before, and her nose returned to normal. "Makes Halloween right easy, I'll tell you."

"I wish I could do that," Calista said, just as the students around her erupted into a collective cheer. She looked back at the pitch, and saw Charlie Weasley holding up his fist. Something gold glittered in it.

"Forty-six minutes," Oliver called, checking his watch. "Brilliant! It took the Hufflepuff seeker twice as long to find it during their last practise. No offense, Tonks," he added, looking at her sidelong.

"None taken," Tonks said cheerfully, "I'm just here for the hot chocolate."

"Hot chocolate?" Calista echoed, and Tonks pointed towards the pitch, where an empty table sat at the edge.

"Charlie always gets hot chocolate sent out from the kitchens after practise. It used to be just for the team, but then he started getting enough for all the Gryffindor spectators, and then, well...a few of us from other Houses found out, and now the team gets to show off in front of a crowd."

Tonks smiled conspiratorially at Calista, "But like I said, we mostly just come for the hot chocolate."

When Calista looked back at the pitch, she saw that the table was now laden with mugs and a large ceramic vessel. The stands emptied as the handful of students streamed onto the edge of the pitch. Calista followed, and took in the delicious smell of chocolate. She took a mug that was offered to her, and filled it from a spigot near the bottom of the container.

Dusk was lingering around the horizon, and the air was just starting to crisp up. Calista wrapped her fingers around the warm mug of chocolate, watched it steam into the cool spring air.

She took a sip, thinking for the first time that coming to the Quidditch pitch had been an excellent idea after all. Then she felt a pair of eyes on her, and looked up to see Charlie Weasley eyeing her quizzically.

"A Slytherin, eh? I think you're the first one to come for our practise. Not spying, are you?"

"No," she said, and she caught Tonks' eye. "I guess I'm just here for the hot chocolate."

Tonks grinned, and Calista found herself smiling along.


	10. Chapter 10

_Calista was in a long, narrow hallway. Wooden planks of flooring stretched out before her and behind her; she could not actually recall where she was, or how she had gotten here, and this house was at once familiar and foreign. She had a sense that there was someone else in the house with her, but friend or foe she couldn't say._

_She stepped forward, hoping that continuing on would jog her memory as to why she was here. The floorboards creaked and groaned underneath her slight weight. Doors rose up on either side of her, looming into existence only when she drew close; perhaps it was too dark for her to see them properly until she was nearly on top of them, or perhaps they really were appearing from nothing as she came near. In this house, that seemed somehow to be a reasonable possibility._

_She came to the end of the hall, and found herself looking up at a long, narrow staircase. It was so long, and so gloomily lit, that it disappeared into shadow mere steps above her._

_She had dozens of choices, but they really only amounted to two: she could try one of the doors lining the hall, or she could climb the stairs and see what was up there. She glanced back over her shoulder, but the darkness behind her somehow felt more dangerous than the darkness ahead; she set one foot on the the first stair, gripped the banister. Her heartbeat felt thready and light in her chest, as she slowly ascended._

_There was a landing, and then the stair turned back on itself. Well, she had come this far. She rose, and found that the stair ended in a hallway much like the one downstairs. Just as before, doors rose up on either side of her as she walked. This time, she stopped in front of a door to her left, at random. She put her hand on the knob, and pressed her ear to the door. There were no sounds from inside._

_She felt, all of a sudden, that there was someone else at the other end of this hallway, someone drawing closer to her. She hadn't yet decided if this was someone she wanted to encounter or not, so she turned the doorknob, and stepped inside the room._

_It was a sitting room, of sorts. There was a large, faded rug on the floor, a sturdy coffee table, a floral sofa. She knew at once that this room was empty of other people, had been for some time. She stepped into the center of the room, pushing the door closed behind her. The person in the hallway was coming closer still; she couldn't hear footsteps, but she had found that somehow, in this house, she was finely attuned to the presence of whoever else was here with her._

_They were close, now; she knew, without understanding how she knew, that this person was trying doorknobs in the hall, too, but that none of them were turning. As the presence approached the room Calista was in, she felt her pulse quicken, her heart pound. This person was someone familiar, she felt now, and she wasn't sure if it was someone she wanted to face._

_She looked again at the door. It was ajar, but she was certain she had closed it behind her. Had there been a draft? She looked all about the room, and noticed another door to her left. Feeling a sudden anxious need to leave this room, now, she crossed the room, pulled open the other door. The knob turned for her, just as the first one had._

_She glanced back at the door she had first entered the room by, lingering in the new doorway. Did she have time to go back, to push the first door closed again? She felt the presence right outside of the room; no, she didn't have time. She slipped out of the room, pulling the second door shut._

_She found herself, unbelievably, in another hallway. This one was wider, and instead of doors, there were empty doorways, beyond which she could view a variety of other rooms; except, she realised, they were all sitting-rooms. They had different rugs, different furnishings,and some had plants or bookcases, but all were sitting-rooms. She ducked into one at random, found that it had a door inside of it, too._

_The other person was in the wide, open-doorway hallway now, too. Calista glanced back through the open archway into this room, and saw only the person's shadow playing against the long wooden planks of the floor, following her in earnest._

_She opened this door, too, and found herself at the foot of another staircase. The other person was right at her heels; she ran up the staircase in a hurry, not even bothering to pull the door closed behind her._

_This staircase was longer than the first. Just when Calista reached the top, she felt the other person setting their foot on the bottom step. Calista turned the corner hurriedly, and found that she was in another, tiny hallway. This one had only one door, at its end._

_She took only five or six steps before she reached the door. It had a window in it, unlike any of the other doors she had seen in this house; in fact, she reflected now, she could not remember having seen a single window anywhere in this house before now._

_She pulled open the door, and stepped into a round room, with windows all around. It was like the top of a lighthouse, minus the lantern. She closed the windowed door securely, took stock of the room she was in._

_There was no furniture. The floor was plain wooden planking, like that of all the hallways. All of the windows were bare, but the glass within them, she saw upon examination, was frosted, so that one couldn't properly see in or out of it. Dim, grey daylight seeped through; it was dawn or dusk._

_The other person had reached the top of the stair, stepped up to the door. Calista walked back to the door quickly, looked out the window set in the door, the only window in the room that wasn't cloudy._

' _Of course' she heard herself say, as she locked eyes, through the glass, on her mother, Bellatrix. Her mother's skin was milk-pale, her eyes wide, dark, hollows in her face. Perhaps it was only Narcissa's suggestion echoing in her mind, but she thought she could see something of herself reflected back in the high arch of her cheekbones, the narrow chin, the delicate expanse of her forehead._

_The doorknob rattled, but didn't turn. 'Let me in, child,' Bellatrix mouthed through the glass, and Calista could decipher her words perfectly even though she couldn't actually hear them._

_Calista shook her head, pressed her palms against the inside of the door. She could feel the rough grain of unfinished wood beneath her hands._

' _Please,' Bellatrix's lips moved again, 'Open the door. I can't see you properly through the glass'._

_It must have been true, Calista realised, because even though the glass was smooth and clear, she couldn't quite make out the irises of her mother's eyes - perhaps there was too much shadow in the hall, or perhaps the glass wasn't so clear, after all._

' _Mother,' Calista breathed, uncertain. It felt like a false name; like a rope you would grab to stop yourself from falling, only to realise it was, in actuality, a snake._

' _Yes, child. It's me.' Bellatrix lifted her hands, placed them at either side of the window, set her nose only a hair's breadth from the cool glass. 'Let me in, so we can speak, so we can be together'._

' _But I don't want to,' Calista said, reflecting, 'I want to be my own self.'_

_Her mother's expression twisted, and her hands began to claw at the glass. The slipping, screeching sound of it broke the silence, and Calista started, stepping back from the door. Her mother must have been kicking at the door, too, because it rattled and shook in its frame._

_Calista looked around again, but the room was still bare. All she had were herself, and the robes she was wearing. She looked down, fingered the black cloth of her robes, the silver clasp of her cloak. Bellatrix howled, and even though Calista couldn't hear it over the force of her fury against the wood and glass, she could see the way it twisted her mother's face._

_Calista's fingers twisted the clasp of her cloak, and she pulled it off her shoulders, held it up against the glass, and then - just like that, the door stopped shaking, fingernails stopped scraping against the glass._

_Astonished, she stared at the black fabric of her cloak, until she realised that the darkness was actually the inside of her own eyelids. She woke up, eyes snapping open, and the little windowed room, the house, melted away into the nighttime._

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

The next morning, Calista sat at a study table in the Slytherin common room, trying, for the thousandth time, the damn mouse-snuffbox spell, fruitlessly. It was a Saturday, and she'd skipped breakfast, finding she didn't have much of an appetite.

The memory of last night's dream still lingered around her like an aura. She couldn't shake the feeling of being hunted, haunted. The dark, gloomy hallways, the looming doors, the round, windowed room cloaked in grey semi-light; they all felt  _real_ , like it was a place she had been before.

And then there was Bellatrix, and Calista couldn't decide which incarnation was haunting her more; her mother's corporeal form battering at the door, or the shadowy, swift presence that had dogged her progress through the strange house.

She had Occlumency lessons soon, and she knew she needed to tell her father about her dream, and she wasn't particularly looking forward to either of those things. She felt exhausted, physically and mentally, as if she had been up all night studying, or perhaps practising this horrid spell.

She swished her wand again, created another whiskered snuffbox, and sighed, changing it back.

Just now, while she kept the dream to herself, she could tell herself that it didn't mean Bellatrix was really still trying to reach her; the whole thing, she could almost believe, was only the product of her exhausted, overworked mind. She spent hours each week preparing for an attack from Bellatrix, so wasn't it possible that her preoccupation had caused the dream, that it hadn't been an actual attack at all?

Except she was fairly certain what her father's opinion on that would be, and she wasn't ready to hear it. She wasn't ready for the impending onslaught of intense Occlumency lessons, either. She wished she could talk to him about the dream without those particular consequences. It would be nice, she thought, to feel like a normal daughter, to go to him with her fears and receive only comfort, not more lessons and more paranoid vigilance.

Without extra lessons and paranoid, protective vigilance though, would he still be her father? She toyed with the idea briefly, as a philosophical question. She stifled a smile by biting the inside of her cheek; it was a clever thought. She wished she could share it with someone.

Just when Calista thought her morning couldn't get any more complicated, Olivia slid into the chair opposite her, and waved her wand. The mouse turned into a beautiful silver snuffbox, and Calista looked across the table, meeting Olivia's gaze. The blonde girl sniffed.

"I can't believe you're still struggling with this simple spell," she said haughtily.

"What do you want?" Calista snarled, immediately defensive. She felt a dull headache begin.

"What did you think you were playing at in Potions class? Portia got a detention because of you."

Calista blinked, sucked in a breath, rocketed to the present moment against her will. "Because of  _me_? Portia got a detention because she cheated and sabotaged someone's potion - which could have been  _extremely_  dangerous, since we both know Portia had no idea what she was doing-"

Olivia waved her delicate hand dismissively. "Save it, Snapelet. You weren't so concerned about  _safety_  when you brewed Amortentia in our wardrobe."

Was this inane conversation really happening right now? It was, and Calista resented it for more reasons than Olivia could possibly understand.

" _You made me do that!_ " she hissed, "And it's not the same, I actually know what I'm doing-"

"Did you know what you were doing when you blamed Portia for Weasley's junk potion? You-"

And Calista interrupted her this time, slamming her palms down on the table. The snuffbox rattled metallically. "You know as well as I do that Portia's the reason that potion went junk. She sabotaged him, just like I said. I only told the truth."

Olivia's eyes narrowed. "'The truth'," she said icily, derisively, "Never mind that. You're supposed to have your housemates' backs, not  _Percy Weasley_ ' _s_."

"Why do you care again?" Calista retorted, "I mean, it's not like  _you_  got a detention, and since when do you care about any of us?" she waved her arm, inclusive of the whole common room, though she only meant herself, Portia, Emily.

A couple of other students, likely bored and avoiding homework on a Saturday morning, looked over with mild interest at the pair, Emily among them - though her eyes were wide, darting from one girl to the other as if she had a stake in their discussion - which, maybe she did.

"Honestly, Calista," Olivia said, nose wrinkling, "It's like you  _want_  to be an outcast for the rest of your life. I'm giving you the chance to apologise to me and you're throwing it away."

"Apologise to  _you_?" Calista said, and now she was really angry; she could feel rage pulsing all around all of her edges - but she could also feel the eyes in the common room, the way they were on her. She could feel the cool, disdainful blue of Olivia's own gaze, and she hated the way that all of it felt; hated, suddenly, the warmth of the sunlight that streamed into the common room, hated the heat of her own anger that was threatening to cause her, again, to act aggressively, erratically. She hated it all.

Her fingers curled reflexively, gripping the edge of the table; they practically spasmed for want of her wand. It was in her pocket… she knew she could have it in her hands, could shut Olivia up in just a few seconds…

And then, unbidden, she had the flash of an image in her head; the wooden door from her dreams rattling. The shadows and planes of her mother's face, clear through the glass but for her eyes. The twisted way her mouth had moved, her long fingers had clawed, trying to  _get in_  at any cost.

And wasn't this seething anger she felt familiar, too? Didn't she burn now with the same energy that had rattled that door on its hinges, that hungered for the chance to get inside that little frosted-window room, to  _win_? She thought that she could  _feel_  Bellatrix crawling through her mind, feeding her anger, egging her on - but there was no intruder. There was only her own rage, so real and hot that it was taking on its own form, inside of her head, inside of her blood. Making her ache with the need to reach for her wand, to curse, to hurt...

She drew in a great breath again, for the second time in their argument. She spread her hands flatly on the table in front of her, deliberately, closed her eyes for a fraction of a moment. It wasn't very different from Occlumency, the way that she gathered the threads of her ire, suffocated them with a cool, dulling blanket of reason. She would get in trouble; Olivia would find a way to get even; everyone was watching her; it wouldn't solve anything long-term. Doing it, cursing Olivia - it would probably amuse her mother, if she ever found out. Most certainly, it would disappoint her father, and he  _would_  find out.

"I am sorry, Olivia," she said at last, fully expecting her words to sound weak, like retreat. She spoke quietly, because backing away from a fight seemed, to her, like admitting defeat; but she knew in her heart that deferring to Olivia was the lesser of the losses she faced in that instant. "I'm sorry that we can't be friends, because it was nice having the four of us, you and me and Emily and even Portia…"

She paused; she knew what she had to say, had to decide, but she was afraid. Giving up, for good, on Olivia's friendship meant giving up the identity she'd more or less clung to since she started at Hogwarts.

"Well, that's a start," Olivia sniffed, "But if you want it all back, you're going to have to find a way to make it up to me."

"See, that's the thing," Calista said, and she was surprised to hear that her voice, even though it was soft, was firm, steady. In the absence of her rage, she felt something else taking hold inside of herself - something similarly hard, but without any aggression in it. Something that made it not only possible, but natural, for her to say what she needed to. "I don't think we  _can_  be friends, anymore. I don't like the way you treat people, and I don't like the way I treat people when I'm friends with you. Making you happy always seems to hurt someone else, and it makes me act like someone I don't want to be."

"What are you trying to say?" Olivia raised her voice in disbelief, glanced around the common room. Calista's declaration had been quiet, but as Olivia's voice rose hysterically, she garnered an audience. "I'm not giving you another chance, Calista. If you walk away from me, you're going to be an outcast until we graduate."

"That could be true," Calista said, and she felt a pang of regret; was this a mistake? But there was that something-else inside her, that reassured her. This felt… maybe not right, exactly, but it felt… true. It felt like stirring the contents of a simmering cauldron, knowing they were exactly the right colour. "But it doesn't seem as bad, anymore, as being a person that I don't even like."

She took another deep breath, let it out. She lifted her hands from the table, rose from her chair. Her eyes met Olivia's, and she saw more or less what she had expected; twin irises of cool blue, an expression of mixed disbelief and disdain.

"Excuse me, Olivia. I have extra lessons to get to."

Olivia stepped back, and Calista made to walk past her. But if there was one thing Olivia could be counted on for, it was cruelty in front of an audience, so long as that audience didn't include a professor, or someone else with more power than she had.

"I don't need an ugly, misfit little crybaby for a friend," Olivia said, so the whole common room heard, "You were crying again last night - did you have a scary dream again, ickle Snapelet?"

Calista felt the air still around her; her anger simmered in the background of her mind; she wanted, badly, to lash out, but nothing she did could erase Oliva's words, or the fact that everyone had heard them. She turned her head to look at Olivia, and the other girl's expression was triumphant.

Everyone was watching; no one was saying anything. Calista found it took nearly all of her energy to step towards the common room door; and then her vision blurred, and she knew she was about to cry, in front of all of them, and she suddenly felt as if the common room door was a thousand miles away. Where was her new feeling of strength, that had gotten her through her declaration? Now she felt only hollow, defeated.

There was a motion at her right; she thought, wildly, that Olivia was going to hex her, and then someone gripped her elbow, and she started, blinked. She felt a tear slide down her cheek, and the heat of it was nothing to the rush of humiliation she felt welling up inside her.

"There's more than one kind of ugly, Olivia," a boy was saying, and when Calista blinked again, she realized it was Marcus Flint, that he was the one that was holding her elbow. He was in his Quidditch gear, and his broom was in his other hand. Calista was sure he hadn't been in the common room when their argument started, and his being here now made everything seem a thousand times worse; he'd make fun of her now, too, and who would she study Transfiguration with? "Being horrible to someone that's supposed to be your friend is pretty ugly, if you ask me."

Marcus, inexplicably, was steering her through the common room. He glanced back at Oliva, and said, loudly, "You were right, Calista. She is a spoiled, stupid prat, and no one needs friends like that."

He set his broom down and nodded at another Slytherin boy, which apparently passed as some form of communication, and opened the door, and they stepped out into the corridor together. As soon as they were through, Calista lifted her arms, wiping her hands across her eyes, working against the flow of tears. Marcus released her elbow.

"Are you all right?" he shifted, uncomfortably. "I hope I said the right thing. I just… she was reminding me of someone, and I couldn't stand it."

Calista sniffled, and rubbed at her eyes, and managed a reply, even though it bubbled around a sob that was caught in her throat. "I don't… I'm trying really hard not to yell at you right now," she said, "Because that's what I always seem to do whenever anyone is nice to me."

Marcus' expression was uncomfortable, too; then it cleared, and he shrugged. "I think I'd rather if you yelled at me," he said, "At least I know how to handle that."

"I know," Calista said, wiping furiously at her face again; she swallowed another sob. "I'm being… I don't know…"

"A girl?" Marcus supplied helpfully, and Calista didn't quite laugh, but at least she was able to stop crying.

"Yeah, a bit," she admitted, and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I just let her get to me. I don't usually… um, cry."

"I know," Marcus said, shrugging again. "Like I said, she was being a prat. Where are you going? I'll walk with you, if you want."

"Potions classroom," she said, "I have, uhm, extra lessons with my dad."

Marcus nodded, and they started walking. "Seems like a downer to me, to have extra lessons, but then I just had early morning Quidditch practise, so I guess it's kind of the same thing."

Calista didn't think so; lessons were something real, and Quidditch was just a stupid game. But Marcus had just helped her out, so it didn't seem like the most appropriate time to point that out to him.

"Who did Olivia remind you of?" she asked, instead.

Marcus sneered. "Gerald Boot. Skinny little wanker, always hanging around in the library. You know him?"

 _Boot?_  Calista frowned, recalling the Ravenclaw boy that had been trying to give her a hard time about her snuffbox spell, but she didn't really want to tell Marcus about  _that_ on top of what he'd just witnessed. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I don't think so."

"Well, he's this smarmy Ravenclaw," Marcus said, confirming her guess, "In my year. We're in the same class for Charms, and he's always calling me out in front of the class whenever I get something wrong. He likes to throw it in my face that I'm behind the rest of the class, like I don't already know it. He's in Flitwick's house, so he doesn't get in trouble, even though he's always calling me a Troll, and trying to curse me. Or at least, he was; It's not so bad anymore."

"What happened?" Calista asked, "Why isn't it so bad anymore?"

"Well," Marcus said, and he grinned at her, just as they approached the door that led to a little hallway that contained the doors to the Potions classroom and her father's office, "He was at one of the Quidditch matches, right? Sitting right in the front of the stands. Tried to hit a Bludger at his face, but it turns out the stands are bewitched, you can't hit anything into them. Still, gave him one hell of a scare, and then just for good measure, when the game was done, I found him over in the same section and just went right up to him and punched him in the face, as hard as I could. Broke his glasses and everything. Got a detention, but it was worth it. More or less leaves me alone, now."

Calista laughed darkly. "Somehow I don't think the same solution's going to work for me."

"I dunno," Marcus said, "Maybe that's just what Olivia needs, a punch in the face. Anyway, I still think you should try knocking a Bludger around sometime."

He pulled open the door, motioning Calista through to the little hallway. The Potions classroom was on the left, her father's office door on the right.

"And I still think that's a bad idea," she said, stepping through the doorway, "But then again, the idea of smashing Olivia's stupid face in…"

He grinned, again."Think about it, then. I'm going to go change out of these Quidditch robes and see if I can find some more breakfast."

Calista nodded, and Marcus turned to leave; she surprised herself, again, by calling after him, pushing the hall door open and sticking her head partway out.

"Wait. Marcus?"

"Yeah?" he half-turned.

"Why did you stick up for me?"

His brow furrowed; he looked genuinely confused. It wasn't a new expression on his face, but it was the first time she remembered seeing it outside of a classroom or a study session.

"Because you're my friend, duh. See you later, Calista."

He left, back the way they had come. Calista felt a flicker of something a little bit like whatever had given her the strength to sign off Olivia's friendship forever; something solid and true.

She pushed open the door to her father's office.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Severus stood in his office at precisely half-past nine, the time when Calista usually came for Occlumency lessons. Earlier in the year, he'd shifted their lessons from afternoon to morning so she could go to the Quidditch matches with her friends. She wasn't typically late, but today the minutes passed.

He became dimly aware of a flash of negative emotion that wasn't his; it had to be coming from Calista. Was she in trouble? He didn't think it felt like fear - was it anger? He wondered if he should go fetch her, but he didn't want to embarrass her if it turned out to be nothing.

After fifteen minutes, he was prepared to go and find her anyway, but then he heard voices in the hall outside his office door. He couldn't make out the words, but he recognized the pitch of his daughter's voice.

He turned around just as the door opened, and she stepped into the office. He searched her face immediately, intensely.

Calista backed up a step, meeting his gaze warily. "What?" she snapped, defensively.

Severus backed up a step, too. He reached a tendril of thought out to her, testing. Her mind was guarded, and there was nothing in the very first layer that gave him any clues. Except… hm. A quarrel of some sort with that Avril girl?

"You were upset, a few moments ago. I felt something coming from you, for a few seconds."

She dropped her gaze, shrugged her shoulders. "It's fine now, I guess."

Neither of them spoke for a pause, which is why he could hear it when her stomach rumbled.

"Did you eat breakfast?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I wasn't hungry."

"But you are now." He didn't wait for a response, just opened the door to his quarters, ushered her in. He didn't keep much in the little kitchen, since he usually ate in the Great Hall with everyone else, but he did have some bread and jelly. He used a controlled-flame spell to toast the bread, and set it down on a plate at her usual place at the little wooden table.

She sat down without a word, and spread jelly on the toast. He puttered around the kitchen for a bit, making two cups of coffee - he didn't let her have it much anymore, but she had had her birthday a couple of weeks ago, and she was thirteen now. He supposed once in awhile wouldn't harm her.

Of course, the entire time, he was also testing her defences. She had several layers intact, from what he could tell, without any apparent weakness. He felt a swell of pride; she was getting better.

He sat across from her, sliding one of the mugs over to her. She finished her toast and reached for the mug of coffee.

"Thanks," she said at last, lifting it and blowing gently into it to cool it down.

"So," he said, prodding gently, "What happened? Are you all right?"

Calista looked at him over the edge of her coffee mug. "You know, I had this thought today," she said, "You know that old saying, if a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does it still make a sound? Well I was wondering, if I came to visit you and you  _weren't_  giving me extra lessons or worrying about me, would you still be you?"

Severus' brow lifted slightly. "Perhaps if you ever came to see me when you weren't in need of extra lessons or being worried over, we would find out."

She took a sip of coffee, set the mug down, and toyed with it, running her fingers through the handle, and pushing it gently back and forth on the table.

He gave her the space of several minutes, and sure enough, she came around with an answer.

"It was a bad morning. A bad night, too. I had another dream about  _her_ -"

Severus tensed; he knew Calista could feel it, when she shot him a brief look.

"It's fine, I think. I don't know. And then, I had a fight with Olivia."

Ah. So he had been right about that. Still, a schoolgirl quarrel hardly seemed worth the burst of emotion he had felt from her earlier. Then again, that Avril girl was a piece of work… his lip curled.

"I told her I'm done trying to be friends with her, forever."

He kept his expression neutral. "I see," he said, carefully, "What made you decide that?"

"I just…" she lifted her cup, took another small sip, then wrapped her fingers around it. "It seems like whenever I'm trying to make her happy, or trying to get even with her, or trying anything to do with her at all, I'm unhappy and I'm angry, and I don't like the way it makes me feel."

She looked at him earnestly; he wanted to ask her, immediately, about the dream, but he bit his tongue, let her continue.

"It's something Kim Avery said to me, and I think you kind of said it once, too. She's not a very good friend. And I feel like whenever I'm friends with her, I'm doing things that I'm not proud of."

"Your argument with her is why you were upset today?"

"Yeah," she said, and then amended, "Well, kind of. It's just… I get that way a lot, and it seems to have to do with her more often than not… I get this anger, and it's just boiling inside me, and it makes me want to lash out, and hurt someone."

She set her cup down, and pulled her legs up onto the seat of the chair, folding her arms tightly around them. She set her chin on her knees, and her voice was suddenly small.

"I felt like I wanted to hex her, and it wasn't… Dad, it wasn't like normal being angry and wanting to get even, it was like… like I just  _had_  to do something to her, like it was hurting me not to do it. I felt like… like  _she_  probably feels every time she casts an Unforgivable Curse. And I don't want to feel like that. I don't want to  _be_  like that."

He studied her, the earnestness in her face, the way she hugged her knees tight to her body. He wished she was small again, that he could allay her fears by buying her a kitten again… except, when he thought about it, the last time he had done that, he'd wound up with a damn cat, so maybe not a kitten.

"What did you do?" he asked her quietly.

"I tried as hard as I could to calm down, and eventually, I did. I told her that I couldn't be her friend anymore, ever. And then I came here."

She paused, but he sensed there was more coming. She hunched her shoulders, pulled herself into a tighter ball of girl on her chair, and muttered something into her knees.

"Of course she called me an 'ugly little misfit crybaby' first, and I basically proved her point by crying in front of nearly the whole common room."

He set his own mug down quickly. Could he give the Avril girl detention for that? He probably could. "But you weren't crying when you came into my office," was all he said aloud.

"Yeah," she said, "Marcus Flint stuck up for me. He kind of cheered me up before I got here."

"Ah, Mr. Flint. Is he a friend of yours?"

She lifted her chin, set it back on her knees. "I guess he is," she answered, tilting her head. "We study together sometimes. I help him with Potions and he helps me with Transfiguration. He keeps wanting me to go play Quidditch though, which is about as likely as Hagrid performing an opera."

Severus chuckled. "So any day now, you're saying." He smiled. "Does that mean that you're the one that helped him manage to brew a Shrinking Solution without burning down my classroom?"

"Yeah," she said, "It was just the leech juice. He didn't know how much a dash was."

Severus nodded. He flicked at her barriers again; they were still solid. Of course, he could break through them if he chose to; that wasn't the point. The point was that she was holding them, even while having a conversation.

"I'm not sure if you're soliciting for my opinion or not," he said, "But I think you probably made a wise decision to try and find some alternative friends to Miss Avril."

She met his gaze, expression suddenly serious. "Dad, what if some of my new friends might be from other Houses?"

"I don't see how that changes anything."

"Even…" she swallowed, "Even if one of them might be a Gryffindor?"

He curled his lip in an expression of exaggerated disgust, and then he gave her a wry smile. "Just please tell me it's not Mr. Wood, unless you're going to teach him not to melt cauldrons as well."

"It's… uhm… Percy Weasley," she said, and then rushed to explain, "It was nice, working with him in class this time. He's not bad at Potions, and he helped me bottle mine at the end. I went to watch a Quidditch practise, and he was there, and he invited me to sit with him and his friends, and most of them actually weren't bad. Except for Oliver Wood," she added, curling her own lip, too.

"Calista, I hope you don't think that I would disapprove of the friends you choose just because of which House they're in. I'm far more concerned with how they treat you and how they make you feel. If Miss Avril makes you unhappy, and Kimberly Avery and Marcus Flint, and yes, Percy Weasley, make you happy, then I think you've already figured out which of them are worth your time."

"I met this Hufflepuff girl too," she said, encouraged. "Nymphadora Tonks. She's a metamorphmagus, she can turn her hair all sorts of colours… she seemed nice, too."

"Ah," Severus said, leaning forward a bit. "She's your cousin, actually."

"What?" Calista's feet hit the floor again, and she leaned forward, too. It was probably a good thing she didn't have a mouthful of coffee, or he would have been wearing it. "I thought Draco was my only cousin."

He shook his head. "Narcissa and Bellatrix had one other sister, Andromeda. She's Nymphadora Tonks' mother. I gather from Narcissa that Mr. Tonks is a Muggle, which is why your new friend won't be invited to Christmas Dinner at the Malfoys' anytime soon."

"So," Calista said hopefully, "Could it be possible, then, that I could be a metamorphmagus too, only it hasn't come out yet?"

Severus smiled at her ruefully. "I'm afraid not. They're quite rare, and from what I understand, they exhibit their ability very early on."

Calista frowned, reached for her coffee again, and drained the majority of what remained in one long sip.

"You'll have to settle for being quite possibly the youngest Occlumens in the world," he said dryly, watching her. Her expression lit up immediately with pride, and she smiled. Good. That's what he'd been hoping for. He smiled, too, and then:

"So. About this dream…"

Calista rolled her eyes. "Why'd you have to go and ruin it? We were having a moment, and now you're right back to worrying."

"In my defence," he said, "I've been quite anxious to ask you about it since you got here. It's been -" and he glanced through the kitchen doorway. He could just glimpse the clock in his study from here. "Thirty-eight minutes. What happened? Did she reach out to you again?"

"I'm not completely sure," she said, tilting her head, and setting her elbows on the table.

"Did she touch you again?" He remembered every time that Bellatrix had given Calista the impression of having physically touched her in a dream, because every time, Calista had broadcast her alarm to him. He hadn't felt anything last night, though. He hoped that meant that it  _had_  simply been a dream.

"She didn't touch me," Calista said, "She never reached me, but I knew she was following me, only at first I wasn't sure it was her."

She described the dream, the long, narrow hallways of the house, and the round, windowed room at the end. When she got to the part about Bellatrix looking at her through the glass, asking to be let in, he started.

"She actually said those words? 'Let me in'?"

Calista nodded, and Severus stood, began pacing in the tiny kitchen. "And you felt her presence? Was it any stronger when she was trying to break the door down?"

Calista frowned, considering. "I guess. I mean, she was definitely trying hard to get in the room, and at first, I just told her no, but then when the door started rattling… I had this idea that I had to cover up the window, but there was nothing in the room, so I took my cloak off and held it up against the window."

"And that made her stop?"

"Well, I woke up after that, but I think it worked."

He paced in silence a few moments, and then said, "This is the first time that you've dreamt of her and had a door between you?"

Calista nodded. "It was the only time that I felt like I was still in control," she said, "Normally, it's like she's overpowering me, and it's so hard to say 'no' to her, but this time… I guess it's because she couldn't touch me, and I couldn't see her eyes, so she must not have been able to see mine, either. But this time, I felt like, of course I knew that I didn't want to let her in, and it was easy for me to tell her so, to keep from opening the door. I was just afraid she was going to break it down, eventually."

"Your barriers," Severus said, pausing in his pacing to stand aside of her chair, placing a hand on her shoulder. "That's what protected you. It means you're keeping them up, even when you're asleep. That's good. We just need to make them strong enough that there isn't even a door she can batter on to try and get in."

She looked up at him, guarding her eyes. "But she's miles and miles away now," she said, "How much stronger will she be if I ever have to face her in person?"

"I don't know," Severus told her honestly, "That's why I aim to teach you until I can't anymore."

Calista shivered. He realised how that had sounded.

"Until I've taught you everything I can," he amended. He pulled his hand from her shoulder, took up the seat across from her again.

"I think it's time we tried your defences against an armed attacker again," he said, drawing his wand. He could see the way she steeled herself, exhaled, squaring her shoulders, as if preparing for a physical attack.

" _Legilimens,"_ he intoned softly, letting himself into her mind.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

He hated the feeling that he was invading her mind, hated that he always had to push her just a little further. But he couldn't deny that it was working. He could sense the difference, between when he had begun these lessons and now. Her defences were much stronger now than when they had started out.

Her talent wasn't close to fully developed; if he'd wanted to, he could have picked through her mind, thread by thread, dismantled it, even. But he was starting to suspect that the group of people who could have done that to her was diminishing, with each lesson. Once, he had questioned whether he could train her well enough to defend against Bellatrix, against his own enemies someday.

Now, he didn't question  _whether_  she'd be strong enough; only when. Because that was the other thing that he was seeing, when he infiltrated her mind, when she gathered her defences…

Occlumency was a tricky, nuanced art - to practise it, one needed magical potential, mental fortitude, a high degree of willpower, and a strong sense of emotional intelligence. Even then, all of those things had to come together, in just the right way, along with a focused dedication and at least a speck of natural talent for it, for one to become truly skilled at deception. It was often difficult to pull all of those things together, to get them working in tandem, even if you had all the elements, and so it was equally difficult, sometimes, to assess someone's  _potential_  for Occlumency.

Except, for Severus, he had spent so much time traversing the hills and valleys of Calista's mind, that he could assess her potential. He could see all the elements she needed - the willpower she had been demonstrating, week after week, when she pushed doggedly through his lessons, no matter how exhausted she was. As for power...she had it. She didn't know how to use it, yet. But it was there, most of it lurking beneath and behind the rest of her mindscape. It was what she had tapped into when she had managed, as a small child, to keep Bellatrix from reading her, how she had kept her eyes so carefully blank when he first met her.

He could see it, when he was training her in Occlumency, and Bellatrix had seen it, when she had launched her takeover on Calista's mind a few years ago. It was why she was so keen, now, to get her claws into their daughter, to exert her influence while Calista was still young, mostly untrained (or so Bellatrix thought).

Calista had never really had access to her full potential. When she was young, she had pulled from it, unconsciously, to protect herself, but that wasn't the same thing as being able to use it at will. And now, all of the pieces were there, everything she needed to be an exceptionally powerful Occlumens. They just weren't  _connecting_  in all the right places - it was like there was a tear in the fabric of her mind, a missing piece, a loose thread, that should have connected her to the full extent of her abilities.

He'd say it again - Occlumency was a tricky, nuanced thing. He'd tried, back when he'd rescued her from Bellatrix's intrusion, to remove the one, the darkest, memory cleanly. He'd had to do it; it was the key that Bellatrix had used to connect to her across an entire ocean and countless miles, and it had been destroying Calista. He couldn't take back what Bellatrix had done to his child, but he  _could_  allow her to grow up, to find herself, without the memory of it clinging to every step she took, and that's what he had done.

With every day of her life after he had taken the memory, he had seen that it had been the right thing, a necessary thing. She'd transformed; she'd gone from a haunted wraith to a child. A clever, stubborn, spirited child with opinions, and desires, and, almost unbelievably in light of the way she had been when he met her, a capacity to love.

It could have caused her entire mind to come unraveled, plucking out the thread of such a central, core memory, if it had been done by anyone less skilled, less connected to her, than he. But he  _was_  skilled, and he  _was_  connected to her, and he had known it could be done. And yet, altering the mind - it was never done lightly, because it was never done without consequence.

She couldn't access all of her potential, yet. He didn't know if she ever could, without the missing piece of her memory. The worrying part was that he couldn't say, with utmost certainty, that she would be able to even after it was inevitably returned to her one day; and the terrifying part was that, with all of that potential, all of that power - if Bellatrix ever did gain control of it all, and use it against Calista, it could utterly destroy her, from the inside out.

That was his job, he thought. To ensure that it never happened.


	11. Chapter 11

The final Quidditch match of the school year was between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and it seemed the majority of the school was abuzz with anticipation for the entire week preceding it. Even all of the professors were going - even Calista's  _father_  was going. He and Professor McGonagall had been exchanging mild banter about it, even as Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint both got detentions for fighting in the corridor.

Calista still didn't much care about Quidditch, but it was hard not to get caught up in the general excitement. The match was to be on a Saturday afternoon, and it didn't seem like anyone in the Slytherin common room was doing any homework Thursday or Friday. Someone had hung a banner along the east wall that said "Go Slytherin" and then someone else had put a smaller sign under it that said "Crush the Gryffindor wankers".

Olivia became even more interested than usual in the male players of the Slytherin team; she kept simpering and acting silly around them, like she had with Colin that day at the stables, and putting her hands on them, touching their shoulders, acting as if they were best friends all of a sudden. A few of them didn't seem to mind it, but Conor Quinn had coldly told her to sod off, and Calista had grinned behind her back. Probably Kim had told him something about the way she treated Calista, or at least that was what Calista chose to believe.

Unfortunately, end-of-year exams were also coming up, although most of the students seemed to have temporarily forgotten about that. Calista was not among them - she had taken to holing herself up in the library again when the common room got too boisterous. She was desperate to do well enough on her Transfiguration exam to avoid being in remedial lessons against next year, especially since she didn't see how she could possibly take all the elective classes she wanted to in addition to extra lessons with both her father and Professor McGonagall.

She flipped through the pages in her textbook, periodically attempting to change a beetle into a button; she had given up on the mouse to snuffbox spell as well as the pencil to ruler spell. She re-read the section in the book on the incantation half a dozen times, but, as she expected, it did no good. She thought perhaps her beetle had gotten a little shinier, but nothing else about it had changed. How could it be possible that she was getting even  _worse_  at the subject?

She sighed, and set her wand down across the spread of the pages she was referencing. This was useless. She actually wished Marcus was here, studying with her, so she'd at least have someone to talk to while she failed miserably, but of course he was focused on the upcoming Quidditch match, and anyway, that third-year Ravenclaw that she was almost certain was his nemesis, Boot, was here _again_ , so she doubted he'd have wanted to be in the library that day, anyway. Emily would have made a good study partner, too, if she wasn't too busy doing Olivia's homework for her. She rubbed her eyes, trying to re-energise herself somehow, picked up her wand, cast a Freezing Charm on the beetle before it could scuttle off, and attempted the spell again.

She heard robes swishing, and looked up to see who else had decided to hide in the library during all the excitement. Percy Weasley was striding down the row of tables, several textbooks in his arms. He paused when he saw her, eyed her uncertainly. She could see him deciding whether or not to greet her; he glanced around, probably, she thought, to make sure Olivia and Portia weren't nearby.

"Hi, Percy," she said, deciding for him, and he returned the greeting with a nod.

"Calista. I'm surprised - I thought I'd be the only one in the library two days before the big Quidditch match."

"Me too," she said, and then amended, "I mean, I thought  _I'd_  be the only one, obviously. I guess I care more about how I do on my exams than who's better at throwing balls around."

"I couldn't agree more," Percy said firmly, beginning to relax a little. "Quidditch is all well and good as a hobby, but exams are in only a couple of weeks, and they have far more bearing on the future than a game." He shifted his books to one arm, craned his neck to see which book she had open in front of her. "What subject are you studying for?" he asked, "Maybe we could study together. Sometimes it helps the material set in better if you go over it with someone."

"Oh," Calista said, and she felt herself flushing red. "I… er, I was just finishing, actually."

She closed her book hastily, and pulled it towards herself, trying to hide it. Too late, she realised she had forgotten about the still-motionless beetle on the table.

"Beetles into buttons?" he guessed, noticing it. He set his books down on the edge of her table, and his expression pinched into one of concern. "Do you think that will be on the exam? I haven't practised that one since the beginning of term."

"Er, probably not," she said, "But I was just… you know, just in case."

There was no way she was going to admit to Percy Weasley, of all people, that she was still hung up on such simple transfigurations. She willed him, silently, to go away, now regretting her decision to greet him. What if that Ravenclaw overheard them again, and decided to let Percy know just how hopeless she was? She glanced in his direction, but mercifully, he seemed absorbed in a massive tome on Runes.

"Mind if we practise together, then?" Percy asked, sliding into the seat opposite her. "I haven't even begun to review old spells, I've just been practising Badgering, you know, turning smaller animals into badgers. I've only tried with mice though, d'you reckon there will be other animals we have to transform for exams?"

"You think Badgering's going to be on exams?" she echoed, unable to keep a note of panic out of her voice. She wasn't even allowed to  _try_  that spell yet; McGonagall had told her to keep trying to turn  _her_  mouse into a snuffbox instead of a badger.

"Well, I'd expect so," Percy said, "Since we've been spending so much time on it. But I hadn't thought of going backwards, of course there's bound to be more than one spell on the exam… can you still get the buttons to come out right, then?"

"Uhm." Calista said, "Not… not really."

Percy peered around his books, and prodded her beetle with the tip of his wand.

"Er… do you think perhaps it's because your beetle is dead?" he asked, tentatively.

"What? It's not dead." She aimed her wand, undid the Freezing Charm just to make sure. The beetle immediately began crawling away, but she froze it again. "It's just frozen, see?"

Percy pushed his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose. "Hang on - did you manage to keep the beetle frozen the whole time we were talking?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that's… I'm good at Charms," she said, and then added darkly, "That's not my problem."

"That's  _really_  good," Percy said, and he sounded almost envious. "Mine doesn't last nearly that long. Do you suppose that will matter?"

"I don't know," she said, and then, hopefully, "Maybe something  _is_ wrong with my beetle, though. Maybe that's why I can't get it to work."

Percy lifted his wand, waved it, and recited the proper incantation. The beetle changed obediently into a sturdy, shiny black button. He waved his wand again, and it turned back into a beetle.

"Seems fine to me," he said, and looked at her curiously. "What sort of trouble are you having?"

Calista took a deep breath, and tried to clear her mind. She refused to think about how many times she had already failed at this spell, tried to pretend that it was her first time trying to cast it, and followed the instructions McGonagall had drilled into them in class. She couldn't fail in front of Weasley; he'd make fun of her horribly, she was sure of it.

Her beetle's legs shrank to little stubs, and its shell grew hard and shiny, but it was still far from a button.

Percy winced. "Have you gotten it to work before?"

"No," Calista said glumly. "I wish I could just drop Transfiguration now, instead of waiting until sixth year. I hate it."

"Really?" Percy sounded incredulous, "But it's a wonderful class, and an important magical discipline. It's my favourite."

"Yeah," Calista said, "But you're not rubbish at it."

"Neither are you," Percy said kindly, although he wasn't in her class, so how could he know? "Just because you have trouble with one spell doesn't mean you can't do it at all - it took me ages to get  _Avifors_  to work properly."

"It's not just one spell," she said, miserably. "It's  _all_  of them, I don't know how I can possibly pass the exam. I just don't want to be stuck in r- uhm, I don't want to do badly." She had almost accidentally revealed that she was in remedial lessons, before she'd remembered who she was talking to. Percy seemed okay for a Gryffindor, but his best friend was Oliver Wood, and if  _he_ found out, she'd never hear the end of it.

"Maybe I can help," Percy offered. "It's my best subject, and Professor McGonagall had me tutoring a first year a little while ago. Just tell me which spell was the last one you got to work properly, and we'll go from there."

"Uhm, no thanks," she said quickly. Imagine if he found out she hadn't even managed to turn a match into a needle yet, she'd never hear the end of it. "I mean, that's really nice, but I already have people helping me. It's just… it's just going to take me time, is all."  _Like forever,_  she thought darkly to herself.

"Is it  _Avifors_  you're stuck on?" Percy persisted, "I was too, until I realised, it's more of a  _twist_  you do with your  _wrist_ , you want to keep the wand itself pretty still."

"I don't need your help with stupid  _Avifors,_ " Calista snapped, clutching her book tightly to her chest and fixing Percy with her best scowl.

"Well, which one, then?" Percy laughed good-naturedly, "I mean, it can't be all  _that_ bad, it's not as if you're still trying to turn a match into a needle, or something."

Silence stretched out between them, during which Calista hoped fervently that her subconscious would take over, give her some burst of unexpected magic, and she'd somehow manage to turn herself invisible in that instant. She could feel her face heating up, and Percy looked taken aback.

"Well, if you've really never even completed the most basic transfiguration properly," Percy said, recovering and drawing himself up stiffly, "Then what are you playing at, trying more complicated spells?"

"Sod off, Weasley," she said, and folded her arms. "What do you care, anyway?"

"Well, obviously, I'm trying to  _help_ ," Percy said, affronted. "You don't have to be such a  _Slytherin_ about it."

"I didn't invite you to sit here and mock me!" she said shrilly. "You don't have to go poking your stupid Gryffindor nose into  _everything_ , you know!"

"You're mental," Percy said, disbelieving. "I'm not mocking you, I'm trying to  _help_  you, or weren't you listening the first time I said so? I thought… you know what? Nevermind. I obviously thought wrong."

"No, go on," she said defensively, "What did you think? That I'm daft because I can't do your stupid bird spell? That I must be -" she suddenly remembered what Marcus had told her about that Ravenclaw Boot, and savagely: "I must be a _troll_ , to not even be able to turn a matchstick into a needle?" And then she seized on something else, something he hadn't even really said, but that she herself had sometimes feared, that being in the same house as her mother meant something she didn't want to face. "Or is it that I'm obviously an  _evil_  Slytherin?"

Percy's jaw dropped, and he shook his head, closed it again. " _No,_  none of those things. I thought - and clearly I must be mistaken - that we were becoming  _friends_ , but you're not really treating me much like one. I suppose next Potions class you'll be sitting with those other girls again, and making fun of me, throwing things into my cauldron."

His face was red now, too, and Calista could see that he looked wounded. He started to gather his books, quickly. She was startled; was he really worried that she'd do that?

"Percy," she said, "Don't be daft - I'm not going to make fun of you, as long as you don't make fun of  _me_. I'm just… I'm used to stupid Olivia saying she's going to help me with something and then stabbing me in the back."

"You shouldn't be friends with people like her, then," Percy sniffed, still looking as if he might leave any second.

"I know that now," she said, "That's why I'm  _trying_ to make other friends, but I'm just not very good at it, obviously."

"Hmph,  _obviously_ ," Percy agreed, peevish. He added, "You can start by not calling me stupid, nosy, or daft. I wouldn't call my friends anything like that."

"You did say I was mental," she pointed out.

"You're right," Percy said, "And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

"Thanks," she muttered, "I guess."

"This is the part where you're supposed to apologise for all the things  _you_  called  _me_ ," he prompted.

"Oh," she said, "Right. I'm sorry. You're not daft, obviously. You are a bit nosy, though."

"Only because I was trying to  _help_ ," Percy said again, in long-suffering tones.

"Okay," Calista said, "If you're my friend, and you want to help me, then you can't tell  _anyone_  how bad I am at Transfiguration."

"Do you really think I would go around telling people anything like that?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said, "Maybe. But you  _can't_."

"I wouldn't do anything like that," he said, "I'd never make fun of someone for academic problems - how would they ever improve, if they were afraid to keep trying?"

"I would," Calista admitted, "I have. I called Marcus Flint a troll before he was my friend, and I make fun of Portia and your friend Wood all the time for being rubbish at Potions."

"Well," Percy said, "Maybe you should stop doing that. Especially if you ever want to become a Prefect."

"Who said I wanted to be a sodding  _Prefect_?" she scoffed, but then she tilted her head, a cautious curiosity entering her voice. "Do you really think they'd ever make me one?"

"Well, it's still too soon to say, isn't it? But I've been trying to make sure I'll be considered seriously, and if you want a chance at being one, you ought to do the same. You know, keep up with your schoolwork, keep your nose clean, try to help younger students out a lot, that sort of thing."

Calista considered it. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing to aim for; at any rate, if she became Prefect, that would mean Olivia wouldn't, and that in itself was worth something.

"I don't know what I'll do if I don't get chosen," Percy confessed wistfully. "Charlie and Bill were both chosen, and Bill's Head Boy now. I can't imagine being the first in the family not to make it."

Calista looked at Percy's face, really looked at it, for perhaps the first time. It was still a little pink around the cheeks and ears from their argument a few minutes ago, and it clashed with the smattering of freckles against his otherwise pale skin. Worn-looking horn-rimmed spectacles framed a pair of often serious blue eyes, and a splash of bright red hair made him easy to spot from a mile away. A solemn frown creased his face, now, and a wrinkle appeared in his forehead, above the chipped bridge of his spectacles. In that moment, his face was so drawn, so very sincere, that it sparked a surge of emotion from Calista she hadn't expected to ever feel for Percy Weasley when she'd first met him on the train.

It was just that he looked so  _vulnerable_  all of a sudden, and while her gut reaction to vulnerability was more often than not disdain (or was that even true anymore? She wasn't sure), she found that instead of wanting to tear him down, she wanted to bolster him, restore the prissy confidence she had come to expect from him.

"I'm certain they'll choose you," she said, with a deliberate generosity to her tone, "They'd be mental not to."

Percy found a small smile. "Thank you, Calista. That's very kind of you to say."

Their gazes locked for an instant, and then both hastily looked away. Percy's eyes fell on her textbook in front of her again.

"Good heavens," he said, and in that instant he became his good-naturedly bossy self again, "Neither of us will ever make Prefect if we don't study for our exams. We'd better get started. Have you looked over the notes for History of Magic yet? Perhaps if we quiz each other on the dates they'll be easier to remember."

"I haven't," she said, and stood up, clutching the hated Transfiguration book. "I'll go get my things then, and meet you back here? We can make cards with the dates, that's what Emily always does and she swears it works."

He nodded, and she swept out of the library, wondering at the little bubble of warmth she could feel swelling in her chest. She'd always thought that being kind, giving praise to others, would mean having to give a piece of her pride away, would somehow diminish her, but she was finding, to her utter astonishment, that the opposite was true. It didn't make her feel smaller at all; it made her feel  _more_ , bigger. Better.

It made her want to smile, even in the face of studying the International Warlock Convention of 1289 for the next umpteen hours.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Calista walked towards the Quidditch pitch, a bit behind the rest of the group of Slytherin spectators. She scanned the crowd, wondering if she should attach herself to Kim and Conor's friends again, or if she should just bugger all of them and sit with Percy - but he'd be with the other Gryffindors, and as much as she was starting to like him, she didn't much care for the rest of them, and she certainly didn't want to give the appearance of supporting any team that Oliver Wood was on. She saw, somewhere ahead, a flash of blue hair; she could sit with Tonks, that wouldn't really be supporting one House or another, would it? But she'd heard that most of the Hufflepuffs were supporting Gryffindor, and even if it weren't for Wood, of course she wanted Slytherin to win, because Marcus, Kim, and Conor were all on the team, and they were her friends.

That was the problem - most of her friends that were in her own house were on the team, and she definitely couldn't sit with Emily, because she was still following Olivia and Portia around; she could see all three of them, up ahead. She was still considering the matter when a familiar hand landed on her shoulder, and she looked up to see her father.

"Dad," she said, and she could feel her face spread into a smile, to see him outside of lessons. "You really  _are_  going to watch the Quidditch match, then?"

"I am," he said, slowing to match her pace. "I thought I'd sit with you, unless you have other plans."

"I don't have other plans," she said, "But you have to promise not to spring any surprise Occlumency tests on me."

"Fair enough," he said smoothly, "I'll wait until dinner, then."

She scowled half-heartedly at him, as they approached the Quidditch pitch, and found seats in the stands. She'd been afraid he was going to want to sit with all the other teachers, and she'd be the only student among them, but they sat behind a group of Slytherin students, sixth and seventh years, by the look of them, although Peter and Ethan weren't with them. She spotted them much further down, in the first few rows. A few of the students in front of them turned around, greeted their Professor and Head of House, glanced at Calista, but she was used to the double-takes by now, when people realised whose daughter she was.

The match started, and Gryffindor took the lead right away, scoring three goals in the first five minutes, before Kim Avery sent a bludger viciously towards one of the Gryffindor Chasers, who dropped the Quaffle, and Conor sailed underneath her and plucked it away. He went straight for the Gryffindor goal posts, but whatever Calista thought Oliver Wood's shortcomings were, he was an excellent Keeper, even though he was only a second year. He blocked Conor's shot, and Gryffindor took the Quaffle again.

They scored twice more before Marcus took the Quaffle back for Slytherin, and finally eked a goal past Wood. Calista cheered with the rest of the Slytherin supporters. She glanced up, and saw her father clapping, too. She didn't think she liked Quidditch much, but actually, she found that she enjoyed watching the match with everyone else in the stands; again, she was caught up in the crowd's excitement, and found herself wincing when Marcus took a bludger to the arm, and dropped the Quaffle.

It wasn't long after that before the cheating started; mysteriously, the Beaters on both teams suddenly lost their aim, and more than one player was clipped directly by a club. Calista yelled "Foul!" with everyone else in their section when Conor was nearly knocked off his broom by a sharp elbow from a Gryffindor Beater, and she groaned in frustration when Kim was given a penalty and temporarily removed from the game for retaliating by smashing the Gryffindor Beater with her club. Marcus hadn't been kidding; out there on the pitch, Kim looked positively vicious, and as soon as she was allowed back in the game, she sent a bludger crashing into the Gryffindor holding the Quaffle, winning it back for Slytherin.

The Slytherin team rallied after that, rapidly scoring enough goals to tie the score. Three more players were temporarily removed from the game - Marcus for intentionally slamming into one of the other team's chasers, the other Slytherin beater for hitting Wood with a bludger when the Quaffle was nowhere near the goalposts, and a Gryffindor beater for hitting  _that_  player with his club. The Slytherin players seemed to benefit from being sidelined though, because whenever one of them returned to play, Slytherin scored another goal, and they were soon ahead.

It was looking good for the Slytherin team now; they were ahead by seven goals, and the green-clad section of the crowd was cheering madly. And then, suddenly, their cheering shifted to an outraged groan, as Charlie Weasley began circling the pitch, fist held high in triumph. Something gold glittered between his fingers; he had caught the Snitch, and won the game for Gryffindor.

Many of the Slytherin students were hissing and booing now, and one of them in front of Calista started to say something that began with, "You bloody f-" but his friend had poked him and they'd both glanced back at Professor Snape sitting behind them. The one who'd started to speak flushed, and closed his mouth quickly, but it didn't appear as if the Professor had noticed; he was scowling in the direction where the other professors were sitting, more likely than not at McGonagall's red-faced, wild cheering.

Calista followed him when he moved to leave the stands, half-jogging once they'd reached the grass to keep up with his longer strides.

"Cheer up," she called, from a pace behind him, "The day's not over yet; you still get to ruin my weekend with extra lessons."

"Ah, yes, extra lessons," he said, snappishly, though he did slow his pace. "An investment of my time which you are so grateful for that you consider it to be ruinous to your day."

"Not just the day," she said, with a grin. "The whole weekend. How can you stay angry with that to look forward to?"

He rolled his eyes, but obliged her with a half-smirk. "You really are a terrible brat, you know."

They walked peaceably despite that back to the castle. When they had gone inside, Severus looked down at her again.

"You're welcome to take dinner with me in my quarters. We can have your lessons, as well."

"Am I welcome not to?"

"Nice try. Your presence is merely requested at dinner, but it's required afterward for Occlumency lessons."

"I feared as much. All right then, I'll eat dinner with you, I guess."

"Oh, please do try to contain your excitement," he said drily, as they both headed down towards the dungeons.

Halfway down the stairs, he lightly brushed against the outer edge of her mind, testing for her barriers.

They were firmly in place, and as strong as he thought he'd ever felt them, even though she was walking with a steady pace, and conversing with him at the same time. He registered with some surprise that his initial brush against them hadn't been strong enough to break through them; if he'd wanted to send her a mental message, he'd have needed, for the first time, to push it through her barriers, instead of just letting it float against them.

She was getting stronger, every day, and he wondered if there would come a day when he couldn't break through if he wanted to. He wondered, too, which he felt more profoundly in that moment; pride, or sadness?

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

The final weeks before the exam were a frenzied whirlwind of studying, practising spells, quizzing herself or one of her friends, and studying again, for Calista. She studied History of Magic with Emily and again with Percy, and Transfiguration with Marcus. Percy had offered, again, to help her study it, but she was still too embarrassed to let him do that, although she did spend half a day practising Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts with him.

She helped Marcus with Potions, as much as she could, anyway. He seemed to forget things nearly as soon as he had learned them, and she'd had to explain to him what "a dash" of an ingredient meant, again. She studied Herbology and Astronomy with Emily a bit, but then Olivia had wanted to study with Emily, and Calista had left, to finish studying on her own. Now that she'd decided once and for all to be done with Olivia, she avoided her as much as she possibly could, and so far, she hadn't regretted it.

All too soon, exams came around. Calista knew she'd done horribly at the practical portion of Transfiguration, which had included Badgering after all, just as Percy had predicted, but she hoped her essay portion would be good enough to at least get her out of remedial classes.

She was surprised at how confident she felt sitting most of the other exams, though; she'd known Potions would be easy, and she generally did well at Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts, but she'd felt far more confident than she had last year with both Herbology and History of Magic. She supposed it had paid off to study with her friends after all, if her feelings after the exam were any indicator. Percy had been right about something else, then.

She'd known she'd done well on most of them, but when her final marks came in, she'd grinned ear to ear.

Top marks in Potions, which wasn't a surprise, given all her private lessons, but she'd made top marks in Charms, too, and her DADA and Herbology scores weren't far behind. She recalled how she had botched part of the practical exam for Charms last year, and it made her doubly proud to have done so well this time around.

Professor Flitwick had personally congratulated her on her scores, and lamented once again that she hadn't been sorted into Ravenclaw. Calista resisted the urge to tell him he might change his mind if he'd had to watch her painfully subpar attempts at Transfiguration, but she was glad for the praise anyway.

She had even done very well in History of Magic, and well enough in Astronomy, considering she was usually very sleepy by the time class started at midnight.

Oddly, she hadn't been given her Transfiguration marks along with the rest of her scores. Calista hoped fervently that her marks had gotten lost, that she'd just be given a pass automatically, although she suspected she'd never be that lucky.

The reason for her missing Transfiguration marks became clear during one of the final days of term, when she was summoned to Professor McGonagall's office after dinner. She supposed the Professor had probably thought it was kind to let her eat before having one of the Prefects fetch her from the Slytherin common room, but Calista wished she hadn't, because as she made her way to the Professor's office, she was so nervous she thought she might be sick.

No one ever got summoned to see Professors after normal class hours unless they were in very big trouble. She couldn't think of anything she had done that would warrant big trouble lately, which she reflected glumly was something of a miracle in itself, so she had a sinking feeling it was about her Transfiguration marks. They must have been even worse than she'd expected.

Outside the office door, she took a deep breath, and steeled her shoulders, before tapping on the door and turning the knob.

She stopped short when she entered the office, and saw that there were two people inside of it: Professor McGonagall, as she'd expected, sat behind her desk, but her father was there too, standing in the corner and watching the doorway, presumably for her to arrive.

"Dad?" she choked out, her eyes darting to his face, to Professor McGonagall's, and back. She tried to read their expressions; McGonagall only looked as stern as always, and her father's was so neutral she suspected it was deliberate. "What's going on? I haven't done anything - I swear I haven't, if someone says I have then it's probably Olivia trying to set me up-"

"You're not in trouble," Severus said quietly, "Sit down, Calista." He nodded towards the chair across from McGonagall's desk, and Calista took it because she didn't see that she had much choice, anyway.

As soon as she had sat, Severus was behind her, with his hand on her shoulder. It struck her immediately as a protective gesture, and this alarmed her further. What could possibly be going on here? She craned her neck up to look at him, but he was looking at McGonagall again, and she only succeeded in getting a very good angle on his nostrils. She lowered her head again, and followed his gaze to the other Professor.

"Miss Snape, I'm certain it's no surprise to you that I'm concerned about your progress in Transfiguration. I understand very well that you have been struggling this year, despite remedial lessons and help from your father and some of your peers."

"Please don't put me in remedial lessons again," Calista said, and she hated how whiny her voice sounded, even to herself. "I'll try harder, I'll catch up, I'll study all summer."

"I believe that you will study all summer, if I ask you to, but I'm afraid I'm not convinced it will help you, at this point. I've observed you trying very admirably in remedial lessons, and I'm not certain any student in your year has studied the text quite as much as you have this year. To be honest, Miss Snape, I feel that I may have done you a disservice earlier this year, when I promised you that you would be able to catch up to your classmates if you were willing to learn, because you've certainly demonstrated that willingness, and yet we haven't made progress to speak of."

Calista felt tears spring to her eyes, gritted her teeth to keep them from falling. This was awful; what was Professor McGonagall trying to tell her, that she was a troll who would never be able to properly do magic? Were they going to kick her out of Hogwarts?

"In light of how well you performed on all your other exams, I must say that I found myself inclined to believe that perhaps you were suffering from factors beyond your control, so I sought out your father to discuss it with him."

 _Great_ , Calista thought,  _The two of you sitting around discussing how daft I am._

Perhaps she had unintentionally broadcast this thought to her father, because he squeezed her shoulder gently.

"We both understand how hard you've been trying, Calista. We've discussed this quite a bit, and we both feel that it seems there are some - ah, quirks - with your attempts that seem unusual."

Professor McGonagall produced a pencil, and set it deliberately on top of her desk, and Calista felt her heart sink as she squinted at it through her tears. How many times were they going to ask her to try this spell, and how many times would she fail? She felt one of her tears slip out of her eye, and she reached her hand up to wipe it away fiercely. She sniffled, even though she didn't want to - it was just preferable to having bogies slide down her face as well. Then, the Professor produced a ruler as well, and set it down a fair distance from the pencil.

"Go on and attempt the spell," Professor McGonagall prodded her gently, and the softness in her voice only made Calista feel even more as though she were being ostracised, "Look at the ruler while you cast on the pencil."

She sniffed again, ran one hand over her face to wipe away any moisture while she withdrew her wand with the other hand. She took a shuddery breath, and pointed at the pencil, fixing her stare on the ruler as instructed. Even with her voice shaking as she said the incantation, the pencil changed obediently, so that there were two precisely matching rulers on the desk.

Professor McGonagall waved her wand, and changed one of them back into a pencil. She withdrew the other ruler, and nodded at Calista to try again. Feeling utterly foolish, she obeyed, and of course the spell didn't work. The pencil flattened a bit, but nothing else happened.

"It would appear, Miss Snape," Professor McGonagall said, removing the hated pencil-ruler hybrid from the desk, "That the problem is not that your magical ability is insufficient to complete the transfiguration, and nor is it, judging by the essay portions of your classwork as well as your exam, that your mind doesn't understand the spell. These are the typical reasons why a student may have trouble with this subject, but in your particular case, it would seem that the problem is that you are unable to  _connect_  those two things into a proper spell, without visual stimulation. It is a very unusual circumstance, but the happy news is that we do not believe, Professor Snape and I, that it is a  _hopeless_  one."

"I informed Professor McGonagall that you faced some difficulties before beginning as a student at Hogwarts," her father said, and she felt panic rise in her immediately; she didn't think she was letting any of it slip beyond her barriers, but her father's free hand came to rest on her other shoulder, and words appeared in her mind, slipping neatly through her outer layer of defence.

_I did not disclose any of the details, I promise. She only knows precisely what I'm saying now._

"That there were some unfortunate things you had witnessed, that I thought it best for you to forget. In hindsight, I am beginning to suspect that altering your memory may have had unintended consequences."

 _Wait a minute,_  she thought, exerting her effort to project the words towards his mind; she wasn't very good at legilimency, but he had his mind partially open to her, so she was able to reach him.  _You altered my memory?_

 _Later_ , he responded into her mind, and she felt his own mind close off, force her neatly but gently out of it. "It is impossible to predict with complete accuracy the way that areas of the mind interact with each other," he said aloud, "And I am concerned that perhaps the link between your ability to understand transfigurations and your ability to perform them has been corrupted in some way as a result."

She wanted to send him another internal message, but he had closed himself off, and she wasn't nearly strong enough to force her words through. She opened her mouth instead, asked her question aloud, although she phrased it considerably more politely than she might have if it had been only her father who was able to hear her.

"What are you saying, then? I can never do Transfiguration?"

"That's precisely what I'm  _not_  saying," he replied, "Calista, I'm telling you that I think we may be able to fix your problem, if I go back into your mind and reforge the missing connection."

She didn't understand; what missing connection? How had he modified her memory? What had he taken from her, that had caused her to be useless at magic, and how the  _bloody hell_  had she not known about this before?

Professor McGonagall was speaking again. "As things stand now, I'm afraid I have little choice but to place you back into a first-year Transfiguration class," she said, and Calista could feel her face draining of any colour; her forehead felt hot and prickly. And to think, only moments ago, she'd thought it couldn't possibly get any worse than remedial lessons.

"However, if this… corrupted connection due to a modified memory does turn out to be the cause of the problem, and the problem is able to be fixed, I can offer you a choice. You can, of course, begin next year in a first-year class, and I give you my word that I will move you up accordingly as your abilities improve."

Calista must have looked as horror-stricken as she felt, because McGonagall continued, "Alternatively, if you can demonstrate, upon your return to classes next year, that you have made progress - that is to say, that you can transfigure anything at all, thus proving that the problem has been addressed - then I am willing to allow you into the third-year class with your peers, provided you agree to remedial lessons with me and twice weekly lessons with a peer tutor until you've completely caught up. I understand that this is difficult for you, and I'm willing to accommodate that."

"What - yeah, of course. I mean, yes, Professor. I'll… I'll do the extra lessons. Just  _please_  don't put me in with first years, I couldn't stand it if that happened."

Professor McGonagall nodded. "Well. I believe that's settled for now, then," she said, "I'm quite hopeful that when I see you at the beginning of term next year, you'll have something to show me, and we can put all of this behind us. You're a good student, Miss Snape, and I want to see you succeed."

Well, of course she would say that, with her father right there in the room with her, wouldn't she? Still, Calista found that she actually was inclined to believe that the professor was sincere.

"Thanks, Professor," she mumbled, and as she rose from her chair, she felt her father's hands lift from her shoulders. One of them came to rest in the middle of her back, between her shoulder blades, as he guided her gently from the office. From the corner of her eye, she saw him nod politely to his colleague as they left.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

To Calista's credit, she waited until they had nearly reached Severus' own office before she whirled on him, eyes narrowed.

"You  _modified my memory_?" she asked him, in voice that was no less outraged for its low volume.

He opened the door to his quarters instead of his office door, and ushered her inside. He wanted her to sit in his small study with him, but she would not let her anger be delayed long enough to sit down in a chair, so she wound up shouting at him from just inside the entrance to the room.

"Is it true? Did you really alter my memory?" She looked very much as if she wanted him to deny it; he wanted, perhaps even more, to deny it, not only because she was so upset, but also because she had been so much better off without knowing about it.

But he would not lie to her; he had promised her that, once, and it was a promise that he was steadfast to, even when it was in both of their best interests not to be, because he had determined that she needed someone she could trust even more than she needed to be shielded, and that was as true now as it had been when she was six.

"I did," he said, "After Bellatrix attacked your mind."

She looked betrayed, and he hated it; it tore at his heart, it made him viciously angry with himself, it left him feeling hollowed out and isolated. It even made him angry with her, a little bit, because she couldn't possibly understand what it was costing him to be honest, what it  _always_  cost him.

"How could you do that, without asking me?"

"As I recall, you did ask me, once, to help you forget. At the time, it seemed unwise, because I didn't think you understood what you were asking for."

"But then you still  _did it_? How could you hide that from me?"

"I didn't hide it," he said. "You never asked, and when the topic became relevant, I was forthcoming."

" _Relevant?_  Isn't my own mind always relevant to me?"

"If you'd asked if I had changed anything, when I forced Bellatrix out, I would have told you the truth, Calista. But you didn't ask, and you were so much happier, so much  _better_. Understand this, I am not sorry for what I did; I'm sorry it's so upsetting to you, and I'm sorry for any unintended side effects, but what I did was necessary."

"How?" she said, and her eyes glittered with tears again. "How can it have suddenly become necessary, when it wasn't before? You told me I could decide, and then you went ahead and did it anyway. What did you even take? What am I missing?"

Her distress was palpable far beyond the tears that he could see beginning to slide down her face now; her hands shook, and there was an edge of hysteria creeping into her voice.

He ached to reach for her, to comfort her as he would have done if she was smaller and had woken from a nightmare; but he knew that she wouldn't allow it, not now, when he was the one who had upset her.

"Calista, please calm down. I'll explain what I can, but I need you to really listen to me."

"Why?" she shot back, "You obviously didn't listen to me, and now everyone thinks I'm a bloody idiot because I can't do even a  _speck_  of Transfiguration, and on top of everything else, now I find out I've been bloody  _hating_  myself for the better part of two years because of something that probably isn't even my fault? You know what - to  _fucking_   _hell_ with you, I don't have to listen, either!"

He had been allowing her some leeway, but she had just crossed the line, and both of them knew it. He could see surprise register in her face; he didn't think she'd known what she was going to say.

"You  _will_   _not_  speak to me like that," he said, in a low, silky voice that brooked no nonsense. "Do you think you are too old to copy lines? We respect each other, Calista, and I will have you writing it all summer if you forget it again."

She released a shuddery breath and fixed him with a weak glare, but much of her defiance had faded.

"Sit down," he said quietly, and this time she obeyed, retreating to the closest of the two chairs. He took the other one, and waited a moment before speaking further, until he thought both of them were calmer.

She sniffled, and wiped at her face with both hands, waiting for him to speak.

"I'm not sure how much of what happened two years ago you really remember," he said, after several moments had passed, "You weren't - you weren't really  _present_  the whole time. Your own presence in your mind was fading under Bellatrix's attack. But I did give you a choice, Calista. I separated you from your bad memories, but showed you how to recover them, if you chose."

"And I did," she said quietly, "I chose to remember. I chose to be strong."

"You did," he agreed, "And you are. This doesn't change any of that."

"What am I missing?" she asked again.

He felt a small sense of relief, in the knowledge that he couldn't tell her yet. Her Occlumency skills were not yet sufficient to block Bellatrix from invading her mind again if she had those memories back. But one day, she would ask him this question again, and she would be strong enough, and he would have to return them to her. When that day came, it would not allow Bellatrix to destroy her in the same way she had nearly done two years ago, but the effects of it on her psyche would be no less severe than they had been in the first place.

He wanted, more than anything, to be able to keep them from her forever; he couldn't do that. But he was justified in keeping them from her now.

"There were a very small set of memories that Bellatrix found a way to exploit, and she used them to torture you inside your own mind, to infiltrate and hurt you. I don't know precisely how she managed to twist those memories, but I do know that she could do it again. That's why you're learning to guard your mind, and you've come a long way, but Bellatrix learned Legilimency from the Dark Lord himself."

"You won't tell me, then," she said flatly.

"Not yet," he said, "But I give you my word that I will, some day, when you are an accomplished enough Occlumens."

"How much am I missing, if you won't tell me what it is?"

"Only a very small handful of closely related memories. Think of it as a dittany plant, with just one leaf blighted. With the leaf intact, the blight might spread to the rest of the plant; but once you remove it, the plant is healthy, and if you never saw it there before, you'd never know it was missing."

"I'm a plant now, then? A blighted plant?"

"That's not what I said. And I don't want to minimise how dangerous the memory could be, if you had it back to be exploited again; but you don't need it to still be  _you_."

"What about my magic?" she asked, "Do I have to wait to learn Transfiguration until then?"

"I believe that is something I can fix now. I have to admit, until Professor McGonagall and I discussed your exam scores and everything else in depth, until we compared your work in that class to the work in the rest of your classes, and analysed the implications of the ways in which your spells failed, it never occurred to me that I might have made a mistake."

"What if you can't fix it?"

"Why don't you let me try before we worry about that?"

She exhaled audibly, looked at him. "I'm still angry with you," she said, "Even if you fix it, I'm going to be angry."

"What could I have done differently to prevent that?" he asked, "Short of not taking the memory, which I truly didn't have a choice in, and not making a mistake, which I was not aware of making?"

"You could have just told me," she said, "The way you explained it just now, right after it happened."

"Even your knowing I had modified your memory wouldn't have prompted us to discover the potential effects on your ability to transfigure things any sooner," he pointed out reasonably.

"But it's not just that," she said, her voice rising with emotion, but not quite veering into disrespect again. "You always say that we have to respect each other, and trust each other, but you were hiding something really important from me. I get that you can't tell me everything yet; I don't like it, but I get it, I guess. I don't get why you kept the whole thing secret from me."

"I made an error of judgement," he told her, meeting her gaze directly. "I wasn't looking at it as keeping a secret, but as omitting something that might upset you that I didn't think you needed to know. I didn't think it would matter, if I couldn't tell you what I'd changed."

She blinked rapidly several times, and dashed tears away from first her right eye, then her left. "It does matter."

"I can see that it matters to you, although I'm still not sure I understand why."

"It matters because… because it's  _scary._  I know you could enter my mind any time you wanted to, and I also know I'm not strong enough to stop you. It usually doesn't bother me much, because mostly you only do it to help me, but when we're having Occlumency lessons, you always tell me you're there, either out loud or by letting me sense your presence, you know? But now it turns out that you've gone into my mind when I wasn't aware, and changed something, and I might never have found out about it for years if you  _didn't_  make the mistake with my transfiguration stuff."

"It never occurred to me that way, until now. I'm sorry, Calista."

He thought he understood now, what it had cost her each time she had been honest with him. He'd always thought it should have been simple for her to go to him when she needed help, never comprehended why she'd often tried to hide her mistakes and fix them herself before admitting she was in over her head. But now he was reminded of something he had learned a long time ago. It was not easy to admit a mistake in the first place; when that mistake negatively impacted someone you loved, put you at risk for being on the receiving end of their disdain, or rejection, it was exceedingly difficult.

"Thank you," she said quietly, and he thought she understood that quite as well as he did.


	12. Chapter 12

Calista hadn't wanted Severus to enter her mind to try and fix the connection problem she was having with Transfiguration right away. She was still somewhat shaken by the realisation that he had modified her memory without her knowing it, and she asked him to wait until she'd had time to get used to the idea.

Once she had explained, he supposed he understood. That she seemed more or less okay with him routinely slipping into her mind to test her barriers and train her to make them stronger had begun to feel normal to him, but he had to remember that for her, it took an extraordinary amount of trust. He prided himself on maintaining that trust, never tried to read memories that he didn't think she wanted him to, and never lingered in her mind longer than he needed to to help or protect her, but he was always upfront about when he was entering her mind. That, just once, he had not thought to be, had - temporarily, he hoped - weakened her trust in him.

He didn't like it, didn't necessarily agree with it, but he understood her feelings, and so he agreed to put Occlumency lessons on hold as well, though he had set a limit of a month on the agreement, for her own protection. She was getting stronger, that was true, but Bellatrix could be, too.

Still, they were getting back to normal. Their typical back-and-forth banter had returned, at any rate.

They'd been eating dinner one night when he brought up her planned course load for the next year. Students typically chose their electives at the end of their second year, through the deadline wasn't until two weeks into the summer. The revelation about her difficulties in Transfiguration, coupled with the fact that she already had extra lessons, had complicated things a bit, and he hadn't submitted her requests yet.

"So," he said, watching her chase several peas around with a fork, "I know you were considering taking up the Study of Ancient Runes next year, but I thought I'd let you know that the Headmaster is willing to allow you to count your additional Potions lessons as well as your Occlumency lessons towards your elective requirements, so you don't have to."

"Huh?" She stopped, her fork halfway to her mouth, and the peas promptly rolled off it. Some of them landed back on her plate, but a few rolled across the table, and at least one landed on the floor. "You're joking, right?"

"Yes, the subject of timetables is positively rife with comedy," he said, drily.

"Did you even read my form?" she asked, "I put down Ancient Runes, and Arithmancy, and Care of Magical Creatures."

"Well, the only one you've really spoken to me about before is Ancient Runes, so I assumed you'd only put the others down because you thought you had to."

"No," she said, bringing her fork to her plate again. She gave up on the peas and speared a piece of chicken instead. "I want to take all three of them."

Severus sighed, and set his own fork down. "Calista, I'm not certain that will be possible. Your lessons with me give you two lessons more than anyone else already, as I said, and Professor McGonagall wants you in remedial Transfiguration again, and you need to take flying lessons besides."

She winced, swallowed her mouthful of food. "You haven't forgotten about that?"

"I'm afraid not; and, for your information, in an attempt to make up for upsetting you at the end of term, I did try to have you permanently excused from them, but it's evidently 'an essential skill for any witch or wizard'."

"What if I just skive off?" she asked, spiritedly, waving her fork around, "And they'll refer me to you for detention, right? And you can just let me off, since you agree with me that flying lessons are rubbish, anyway?"

"I could do that," he said, "If you wanted me to be accused of favoritism, and have my Head of House position revoked."

"They can't do that," she said rationally, "You're the only Professor that was in Slytherin, right? Who else are they going to choose?"

"I feel insulted, for some reason."

"No, Dad,  _seriously_ ," she said, and her eyes had gone wide, "I  _can't_  take Flying this year, I just can't."

"I'm waiting with bated breath for the reason."

"It's a bunch of first years," she said, "I can't be in a class with a bunch of first years!"

"You could have taken it in your first year, but you preferred to wait."

"No," she said, "I preferred to have you forget all about it, actually."

Severus rose, and gathered his plate and flatware, setting them down in the sink. He turned around, leaning casually against the worktop to look at her.

"Ah, I see. Frankly, I think you should have known better than that. When have I ever forgotten to make you do something you don't like to do? Ruining your day is my favorite thing, remember?"

"You're not funny."

"A pity, I thought I was doing so well. Perhaps I should go back to telling timetable jokes?"

She rolled her eyes, and gathered her own dishes, brushing past him to set them in the sink as well.

"Don't forget to pick up all those peas," he said. "We're not at Hogwarts; we don't have any house elves."

She brushed them off the table with one hand into the other, bent down to retrieve a couple off the floor. "I'd rather  _be_  a house elf than take flying lessons," she grumbled, disposing of the stray peas.

"At least it's not for the entire year," he pointed out, reasonably, "The lessons only go six weeks."

"That's plenty of time for me to fall off and break my neck," she said, "Or crash into a building, or have a bunch of stupid first years make fun of me, or something else horrible like that."

He pretended to wince. "Oh, do you think that's a possibility? I wasn't at all concerned about a deadly injury, but if you think someone might laugh at you? Perhaps it  _is_ too dangerous."

"You're still not funny," she said, but he could see her working not to smile.

"At any rate," he said, "The maximum number of slots in your timetable is eleven. With your form the way it is, and the other lessons you have to take, you'd be at fourteen. Even if you can drop remedial Transfiguration and Flying partway through the year, that's still twelve."

"You could let me off extra Potions."

He narrowed his eyes. "You should have considered that  _before_  you decided to brew illegal potions in your wardrobe."

"I was kind of hoping you'd forgotten about that, too." She grinned at him, pushing her chair in and leaning against the back of it. Without realising it, she was mimicking his posture. "Nah, I'm not serious. I actually like the extra lessons."

"Is there one of those classes you could do without? Perhaps we can work something out if both of your extra lessons with me are at the weekends."

"I really want to take all of them," she said, "Arithmancy and Ancient Runes will help me understand magical theory, which will help me with all my other classes, really," she said, "And I like animals. Kim Avery told me that you get to see a unicorn in fifth year."

Severus frowned. "Even if you can make time for all of those classes, it's quite a workload. I'm not certain it's wise."

"I can handle it. Besides, I won't be studying for Transfiguration nearly as often if it starts actually working for me, right?"

"You have an extraordinary amount of catching up to do," he reminded her, and was rewarded with a scowl.

"It's not fair," she said, which was a tactic she hadn't tried in quite some time. "Everyone else gets to take whichever electives they want. I don't see why I have to be any different. You saw the rest of my exam scores; it's not like I'm struggling with anything besides Transfiguration. I can handle it."

He regarded her for a moment, weighing her words.

"There is one possible solution," he said, "You could apply for a Time Turner, but there are an extraordinary amount of restrictions and laws you'd need to be conscious of."

"Students can get Time Turners?" she was immediately intrigued, "I thought those were only for really important Ministry officials, or something."

"Well, it's not common, but it has been known to happen. There's an application process, and the Ministry will want to review your academic record. In all honesty, I think your remedial class may present a problem. I've never known of a student who was approved that was in remedial lessons."

"But I can try," she said, "Maybe they can give me a condition, like I have to be caught up by Christmas break, or something. I really want to take all of those classes."

Severus stepped forward, shifting his weight off the edge of the worktop. He put one hand on her shoulder, and used the other to tip her chin up, so she looked right into his face.

"It is imperative that you understand that if you are granted a Time Turner, you absolutely must follow all the rules governing its use exactly. You'll not even be allowed to tell your friends you have it, and certainly not allowed to let one of them talk you into abusing it. You wouldn't only be in trouble at school if you did; you could be in trouble with the law, as well."

"I  _know_ , Dad."

"There will be all sorts of forms to sign," he said, "And they'll want you to log each and every time you use it,  _if_  they even let you have one in the first place."

"I understand. I won't do anything I'm not supposed to, I promise. I just want to be able to take all my classes."

He nodded, reluctantly. "All right; I'll send your timetable request in, along with a request for a Time Turner, but I can't promise they'll approve it while you're still in remedial lessons."

She groaned. "Will you stop saying that r-word? I hate it."

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

_Dear Calista,_

_How is your summer so far? Mum says you can come over and stay again, if you want. We could play Gobstones again, or anything else you want to do. I'm sad we couldn't spend more time together this year at school. Maybe when term starts again, you and Olivia can make friends again, so it can be like it was before, with all four of us._

_I know she wants to be your friend again, because your cat left a dead mouse at the door to our room, and Portia wanted to put it in your bed, but Olivia told her to throw it out instead. I was going to tell you, but you haven't been around much, except when we were studying._

_Anyway, I miss you, and I would really like to see you this summer, so let me know if you want to come over. Mum is going to write to your dad, to make sure it's all right with him again._

_Your friend,_

_Emily_

_Dear Calista,_

_Have you chosen your electives yet? I'm going to take Study of Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Muggle Studies, and Divination. I've considered it carefully, and I believe those are the options that will best set me up for success after Hogwarts._

_I must admit I'm concerned for this year, not only because of how much more important my academic record will be now that the later years of my education are approaching, but also because my younger brothers Fred and George are starting at Hogwarts this year, as well._

_They're twins, and they are constantly getting into trouble, with no regard whatsoever for how it reflects on the rest of the family. I only hope that they won't negatively affect my chances at becoming a Prefect; I shall have to try my best to keep them in line. You're lucky you haven't any siblings to prejudice people one way or another about you; sometimes I think it would be easier if I were an only child. Of course I love my family, but there are so many of us it's hard to stand out._

_I've been reading a fantastic book this summer that I think you might enjoy. It's called_ 'Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century' _and some of them are simply fascinating. I'll let you borrow my copy if you like, although I think it's at the Hogwarts library as well._

_Have a happy summer, and do tell me if you read any interesting books!_

_Sincerely,_

_Percy I. Weasley_

Calista received owls from Emily and Percy the same day, and after she had read them, she set them both aside on her bed, and went through the small flat in search of her father. She found him in the small sitting room, reading a very thick book. She squinted, but couldn't quite make out the title. She thought she saw the word  _Curses_  on it.

"Dad?"

He looked up at her over the top of the book.

"Yes?"

"Emily's mother is going to write to you to ask if I can stay with them again this summer. I don't want to."

"Why not? I thought you had fun last year."

"I did, but… uhm, I think Olivia might be there, too, so I'd rather just stay here."

In fact, Calista was certain Olivia  _wouldn't_  be there, because she knew Emily was afraid to invite her or Portia, because Emily lived in a poor neighbourhood and didn't want the other girls to ridicule her for it.

"Perhaps you can go a different week than Olivia?"

"I don't want to go," she repeated, "So maybe if you just told Emily's mother that I'm not allowed to, or something?"

He lowered the book to his lap, holding his page with his index finger. "It's your choice whether you go or not," he said, "But you should at least do your friend the courtesy of telling her the reason you don't want to."

Well, that wasn't going to happen. Aside from the fact that she was still wounded by Emily's declaration that they could only be friendly at school as long as Olivia approved, she had been mortified during her visit last year, first when Emily's mother had noticed that she hadn't washed her hair, and then… she shivered, even thinking about it, and decided to trust her father with part of the reason.

"I had a nightmare when I was there last year," she said, studiously focusing on the bookshelf behind him. It made it easier to keep her expression neutral. "It was… really embarrassing. I don't want it to happen again."

"You haven't had them as often recently," he pointed out.

"I know, but… still. I'd just… rather not."

"Well," he said, and he seemed a bit softened, "Why don't you just tell your friend you'd like to go, but you're too busy. You do have schoolwork to catch up on, after all, and we've been invited to visit the Malfoys as well."

She nodded, and turned to leave, but then she stopped, glancing back at him.

"I think I'm ready to start Occlumency lessons again," she said, "And for you to try and fix the other thing."

He nodded. "After dinner, then?"

"Okay."

It was the idea of seeing Lucius Malfoy again that had decided her. She recalled the way he had tried to read her thoughts when they'd stayed with them for Christmas break, and she wanted to be certain she could still deflect him well enough, if he were to try it again.

Calista went back to her room, and sat on the edge of her bed, using a textbook as a writing-desk. With her cat sitting beside her, she picked up a quill and wrote back to both of her friends.

_Dear Emily,_

_Thank you for inviting me over. I do miss spending time with you, but I have a lot going on this summer, and I don't think I'll have time. I'm visiting some family, and I have to study to catch up in Transfiguration._

_I still don't understand why you want to be friends with Olivia and Portia so badly, they're both awful. I haven't had one detention since I stopped trying to be friendly with them, and no one's asked me to let them cheat off my exams. Imagine how much free time you'd have if you stopped doing their homework for them._

_Have a good summer. I'll see you when term starts._

_Calista_

_PS: Tell Portia if she puts a mouse in my bed, I'll let Yellow use hers as a litter box._

Precisely as she had finished writing that, Yellow had started purring next to her, as if agreeing. Calista grinned, and leaned over to stroke the cat affectionately. "Make sure to get her pillow, too," she said quietly, scratching between the cat's ears.

She rolled the letter to Emily up, and tied a string around it, then took a new piece of parchment.

_Dear Percy,_

_I'm taking Arithmancy and Ancient Runes too, and also Care of Magical Creatures. I'm still taking extra Potions lessons with my dad as well._

_I don't think your brothers will harm your chances at becoming a Prefect. They're different people, no one can possibly expect you to be in control of them all the time. Anyway, if you do something you shouldn't, you can always blame it on the twins, and if they're as bad as you say no one will question it._

_I heard Professor Quirrell is brilliant, so I'm not sure what he's teaching Muggle Studies for. It sounds a bit dull to me, I would think the class would be really boring. Maybe you can switch to Care of Magical Creatures instead, I heard Slytherins and Gryffindors take it together._

_I'll see if my dad has that book you mentioned, he has loads. I haven't really read any new books, but I haven't gone to Diagon Alley yet. I can't wait to get my hands on the books for Ancient Runes._

_See you at the start of term._

_Calista_

She rolled and tied that letter too, and was about to put her quill and parchment away, when she decided to send off one more.

_Dear Marcus,_

_I hope your summer's going well. Are you in extra Transfigurations lessons again this year? I'm going to be stuck in them, so it will at least be nice to have someone I know in the class with me._

_The other thing they're making me take is Flying. I got out of it my first year, but now they're saying I have to take it. It's going to be so boring, I don't like flying. I don't even understand why we have to learn to fly, anyway, I'm obviously just going to Apparate everywhere once I'm of age, anyway._

_Calista_

She wanted to write to Kim too, but she didn't really have anything to say. She couldn't talk about classes, because Kim was going to be taking N.E.W.T.s this year; she wouldn't care about Calista's third-year classes. She shrugged, and put away her things, then she went to ask her father to borrow Nox, his sooty owl, so she could send her letters.

When that was finished, she pulled out her Transfiguration book from last year. It couldn't hurt to study in preparation of possibly having her ability to transfigure things fixed, could it?

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

Severus stood in front of Calista in the study, wand lifted. He recalled, for some reason, a flashback of a memory from when she was small. She was at the orphanage, and the staff had wanted to perform a paternity test before sending her home with him. He recalled how she had become terrified, wild, as soon as a wand was pointed at her, that it had taken several of them to try and restrain her, before he'd told them to just let her go.

Now, she didn't even flinch, at least not from him. He wished he could have shown himself, back then, what he'd eventually be able to accomplish with her. There had been quite a stretch of time where it had seemed hopeless, where he'd wondered if she'd ever be able to trust anyone enough to simply stop expecting they were about to curse her at any moment.

" _Legilimens,_ " he said, looking into her eyes.

His wand boosted his power, so it was a little easier to breach her barriers than it normally would have been. Even so, the barriers she had were not the gossamer cobwebs of a few years ago, and passing through them required a deliberate effort, even if it was not much, for him. He could tell, though, that she wasn't putting much into resisting him, since she was allowing him to enter to try and find the faulty connection that was causing her problems with Transfiguration.

He ignored the surface thoughts in the first layer of her mind, and slipped through the next barrier. He had a feeling that the problem would be somewhere on the inside of her mind, near her psychic core. The second layer of her mind was where the majority of her day-to-day thoughts, memories, and emotions were housed, but he ignored these too, and approached the third and final barrier.

This one, he was pleased to note, was just as sturdy as the first two; once, she had had trouble keeping a consistent strength between barriers. He slipped through, and examined the landscape of her mind beyond it.

It was reassuring to be in her mind and to know at once that everything felt precisely the way it should have. It had been harrowing to enter her mind, years ago, and feel the dark, malign presence of Bellatrix Lestrange, methodically tearing the child's mind apart.

With the exception of shadowy memories flitting here and there, there was no sign of Bellatrix, now. Instead, Calista's mind was a strong, tightly woven tapestry of emotions, thoughts, knowledge, and words, and each thread resonated with something that felt completely  _her_ , at its core.

He picked through them, feeling and following some of the threads, trying to find a place where the tapestry seemed somehow different. He was feeling along a thread that connected to her magical potential, when he came across a snag. He examined it more closely, and found that there was a spot where it should have threaded neatly between another group of strands. Instead, it twisted and knotted about itself before bypassing that group of strands. Further ahead, it wove itself back into the pattern, but not quite where it should have.

He examined the group of threads that this one should have passed through, and saw that there was something in that part of the pattern, that it wasn't woven as tightly as the rest of her mind was. Carefully, he untangled the thread of her magic - it was purple - passing it back through itself until it was straight and unfettered, ready to be woven back into place.

He was startled to find, when he reached the end of the thread, that it was jagged, as if it had been torn forcefully from another thread, or a memory. He called a tendril of his own mind forth to examine it more closely.

There was a shadow, a spark of something foreboding, at the end of the thread where it had been severed. When he surrounded the thread with the stuff of his own mind, he found that it flashed an image at him -

_\- white lines, marking a crude design on pale flesh, connect, find me, child come home -_

Startled, he realised that this thread connected in some way to the scars on her back, that it contained a faint link to Bellatrix, one he could have perhaps followed to find her, with great effort, if he chose.

Did she have a similar thread that connected to him? But no, this didn't seem to be a direct link to Bellatrix, but one that was routed through the cuts that marred Calista's skin. Experimentally, he tried to draw the memory, the image, out of the thread, like sucking venom out of a wound.

For a moment it worked, but then the thread forcefully drew the darkness back into it. It puzzled and concerned Severus; he was quite certain he had removed everything that referred back to the memory of how Calista had gotten those scars.

Was this how Bellatrix was still trying to reach Calista in nightmares? Was she latching on to this tiny fragment of memory? Severus examined it again and again, but he could not find the actual memory of that night, couldn't find even a ghost of the memory itself, only an image of the scars it had left.

There was something else about this thread, though… he concentrated on it, analysed it. Something familiar, powerful, but not precisely Dark.

And then he realised what it was. It was the Trace, the way the Ministry tracked the location of underage witches and wizards. It could not be removed by any means other than the person it was attached to reaching legal age, so that was why Severus couldn't remove it. He realised with a mix of revulsion and grudging admiration that what he had once theorised was correct: Bellatrix had managed to tap into the Trace on Calista, and twist it into something that alerted  _her_  to Calista's whereabouts, too. However she had done it, she had done it the night that she had put those scars on Calista.

His initial panic at realising that this bond was indeed unbreakable for him, that he could never truly sever whatever magical ties Bellatrix had placed between herself and her child, subsided slightly when the opposite side of the coin revealed itself to him.

Of course,  _he_  could not break the link, but Calista would do it herself one day, by turning seventeen. He did not know if there were still other spells that Bellatrix had attached to her that he had been unable to find, but this one, at least, was one with an expiration date. As long as he kept Calista safe until she was of age, this spell, at least, would be broken then, and one weakness Calista had would cease to be exploitable by her mother.

He couldn't remove or alter the thread any more than he already had by removing the memory that Bellatrix had once attached to it by setting a knife to the child's skin, so the only option that remained was to weave it back into the pattern as properly as he could.

He guided it carefully between the multicoloured threads near it, the ones that had gaps in their pattern. When he was finished, he found that it wasn't quite as thick as the rest of the threads in the pattern around it.

All of the threads in her mind were thicker, stronger, than they had been years ago, as they had grown along with Calista. The older she got, the more resilient her minds and the threads within it would continue to become, but this particular one had suffered for its disconnection, and was fine and weak in comparison to the rest.

Well; it was back in place, which was all that he could do for her. He couldn't modify it, not with the Trace attached to it, not unless he was willing to use whatever sort of twisted Dark magic Bellatrix had, and he would not, not on his own child, not even if it might benefit her. Even if he had been willing to try, he had already seen what unintended consequences there could be to altering the mind. Instead, he eased his way out of her mind and back through her barriers.

As the last of his influence withdrew from her mind, he lowered his wand, and stepped back a pace.

"Did you find what was wrong?" she asked, face pinched in concern. Perhaps she had read something of his expression.

"I did," he said, "I've repaired it as best I can. You'll have a lot of catching up to do, but I believe you will be able to perform transfigurations properly, in time."

"I wish I could practise over the summer," she said, "So I can show Professor McGonagall it's fixed. I'll die if she puts me back in a first year class."

"Somehow, I doubt the consequences would be quite that dire," he said, "But there's no reason that you can't practise this summer, as long as you're practising with me."

"Won't I get in trouble with the Ministry?"

"If you were to go off casting spells left and right as you pleased, yes, you would be in an extraordinary amount of trouble," he said, mainly because he knew she'd do precisely that if he didn't say so, "But if you are practising simple spells in my presence, and we are not near any Muggles, no one would take issue with it."

"Can we try now?" she asked eagerly, "I can go get my wand from my room."

He nodded, and called after her, "You should get in the habit of carrying your wand everywhere with you, even if you can't use it yet outside of school. You don't want to be caught without it in a dangerous situation."

He went out into the kitchen while she fetched her wand, and rummaged through the cupboards and drawers, looking for a box of matches the Muggles they leased the house from might have left behind. By the time he found one, she had joined him the kitchen, with her wand and her Transfiguration book.

He took a single match, and placed it in the middle of the kitchen table.

"We'll start with turning this into a needle," he said, and catching sight of her expression, he added, "You have to get the foundations correct, or you'll keep having the same trouble you've been having, regardless."

She set her book down on the table, aimed her wand at the match, and cast the spell. He could see the eager expectation in her eyes.

The match lifted off the table, wiggled around a bit, and slowly changed colour, becoming silver. It landed back on the table with a small metallic clatter, and both of them stepped closer, peering at it.

It wasn't precisely a match anymore, but it wasn't a needle, either; it was a stainless-steel object that was still shaped like a match, and was utterly useless.

Calista looked at it with angsty disbelief. "But that's exactly what happened  _before_!" she said.

"What were you thinking about, when you cast?" he asked her, trying to sound gentle because he knew she was discouraged.

"About finally getting out of stupid remedial classes!" she said, "But I don't see how that's going to happen."

"Don't think about anything but the match," he said, waving his own wand over the match to change it back to its original state. "Try to picture it changing into a needle in your mind, and let go of everything else you're thinking of. Go on, try again."

She squared her shoulders, exhaled purposefully, and pointed her wand again. This time, after the match had turned silver and clattered metallically down on the table, she held her breath when she leaned over to look at it.

It was still just a silver match.

Seeing her eyebrows knit together in frustration, Severus stepped around the table, and took hold of her shoulder.

"It's going to be difficult," he said, "You're essentially starting over from scratch. Try to forget about everything you've already learned the theory of it, everything you've written in any of your essays. Pretend it's your first day at Hogwarts, and you've never transfigured anything in your life, and keep trying. Hardly anyone ever gets it right on their first day, right?"

Well, he had, when he was eleven, but he wisely kept that to himself.

She nodded, and closed her eyes for several seconds. When she opened them again, he had already changed the match back, and was standing beside her. He released her shoulder, watched her attempt the spell again.

She tried, half a dozen more times, and still got the same result.

"Are you certain you fixed the problem?" she asked, "This is just as difficult as it was before."

He nodded. "It's not a quick fix, Calista. You're still going to need to work at it, like everyone else."

"Everyone else can already do this stupid spell," she snarled, "I'm the only one who can't. I  _hate_  Transfiguration. Can't you ask them to let me drop it?"

"I can't, and I wouldn't if I could. You know perfectly well you have to learn at least five years of it to graduate from Hogwarts. It's not impossible, I promise you it's not. You just have to keep emptying your mind, keep trying."

She tried it three more times, each with visibly increasing frustration.

"Anger only helps with curses," he reminded her, and she scowled at him.

"I want to curse the bloody thing," she said darkly. "I want to set it on fire."

"Well," he couldn't resist saying, the corners of his mouth quirking up, "You'll have to change it back to a normal match first."

She glared fiercely at him, and opened her mouth, but he interrupted her before she could speak.

"Whatever you're about to say, do make sure to address me respectfully, or you'll be too busy copying lines to practise any further."

She rolled her eyes, and took a deep breath. Then she said, sourly, "Nevermind, then."

"A wise decision," was all he said, and then, "We'll revisit this another day, I think. That's enough practise for today."

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

They'd gone to visit the Malfoys, just for a day, and it hadn't gone as badly as Calista was afraid it might have, even though her father did make her wear one of her ridiculous dresses again. She drew the line at the tights, though, and so she went to visit them with a green dress that fell to her pale, knobby knees. It was shorter on her than it had been during the winter.

Lucius didn't try to pry into her mind, and Draco was funny. She'd asked her father if they could stop on the way so she could use some of her allowance to buy him a pack of Chocolate Frogs, and he'd seemed pleased that she'd thought of it, and brought her to the store.

She'd given them to Draco, who'd eaten the first frog with a guilty sort of grin. "Mum already told me no more sweets today," he'd confessed to Calista slyly, and she'd laughed. "You should definitely eat another one, then," she'd said, and he had.

He'd rolled his eyes at the first card, which was yet another Albus Dumbledore, but he'd grinned widely when he looked at the second. "Falco Aesalon," he'd said, "Brilliant, I haven't got him yet. Vincent's going to be so jealous."

He'd wanted to use his KidCauldron again, so she'd spent most of their visit in his room with him, watching while he mixed a potion to turn his hair green. He had clearly been using it since Christmas, because he seemed to know more or less what he was doing, and Calista had to offer him very little guidance. Mostly, he peppered her with questions about Hogwarts, and he kept wanting to know about curses. She supposed she probably shouldn't have been telling him, but she liked the way that he seemed to look up to her, and anyway, it didn't sound as if Lucius, at least, would be too upset, from the way he talked about the Hogwarts curriculum.

Before they'd left, Narcissa had given her a hug, and kissed her cheek. "I'll be sending an owl soon," she told Calista, "Before the summer's over, I'd like to spend a day with you, just the two of us. I'd like to get to know my niece; and you should have some new robes, too, something stylish. You've grown a lot taller since Christmas."

"I like my own robes just fine," Calista had told her awkwardly, and Narcissa had smiled gently. "Well, they're serviceable, of course, but we'll find something modern, something all the other girls will be jealous of."

Only a desire to be polite to Narcissa restrained her from laughing in her face. She couldn't imagine that anything she could possibly wear to school would make Olivia Avril jealous, for example. Olivia always wore elaborately tailored robes, usually with designs stitched into them and jewelry to match.

When they'd gotten home, Calista had gone to her room immediately to change into trousers and a comfortable top. "I hate dresses," she announced loudly, hearing it echo through their flat. She wanted to make sure he understood. He didn't reply, even though she knew he must have heard her.

She looked down at her legs, realised the trousers were a few inches too short, now. Narcissa was right, she must have gotten taller. Well, that still didn't mean she needed any fancy new robes. She told herself that she didn't care what she looked like, anyway, she just wanted to do well in school.

Except that wasn't entirely true, or she wouldn't have been so happy to get her ears pierced, wouldn't have started wearing the hair clips her father had gotten her before their last trip to the visit the Malfoys. She wished she was just like Olivia or Endria Folland, a very pretty, dark-skinned girl in Marcus' year that half the boys in Slytherin seemed to fancy. Even Kim and Emily were pretty compared to Calista. The only one she could think of who maybe wasn't was Portia, and that was mostly just because of Portia's constant bogies. So it wasn't true that Calista didn't care what she looked like, it was just that she didn't see much hope, so she didn't try very hard.

She scowled, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. She went out into the kitchen, brandishing her wand.

"I want to practise that spell more," she said, and her father went for the box of matches again, placing one on the table.

She tried to clear her mind, waved her wand.

The match clattered to the table, still very much a match, although a metallic one. Severus returned it to its original state, nodded at her to try it again.

She tried it three more times, frowning with a combination of concentration and discouragement. How could she  _still_ be so useless at this?

She stared at the match, mentally willing it to turn into a needle, as if it would heed her thoughts.

 _Come on, you stupid thing,_  she thought at it, as she waved her wand, cast the incantation,  _Just turn into a needle. Get thinner, have an eye, all that nonsense._

She readied herself to cast again as it clattered to the table, making the same metallic sound it had been doing every time she tried, trying not to let her frustration take over.

"Wait," Severus said, holding his hand up. He stepped closer to the table, looked down, and picked up the match, holding it out between his thumb and forefinger.

Except, it  _wasn't_  a match anymore, not even a steel one. It was a perfect sewing needle, shiny and new-looking.

"You see? You've got it. What did you do differently?"

"I…" she was looking at the needle he held aloft in disbelief. "I called it stupid in my head, and told it what to look like."

"Well, then," he said, "I guess you will be insulting your assignments from now on."

She smiled, a little at first, and then it turned into a wide grin.

"Ha!" She crowed, "Wait 'til I tell Marcus! He kept telling me I had to  _stop_  being so angry at things."

Severus smirked. "I imagine your success has more to do with thinking of the way you wanted it to look," he said, "But you can do as you wish, I suppose. Here, now see if you can change it back."

He put the needle back on the table, and she readied her wand.

 _Right then,_ she thought, casting,  _Turn back to wood, you prat, and get that little knobby bit back that burns._

She leaned over to look. It was a match again.

"Brilliant," she said, "I think I can do it, now!"

She practised the spell over and over, for another hour. She didn't get a perfect transformation every time, but she got it often enough to feel encouraged. A few times, she still wound up with a strange hybrid between the two, but it was progress, and it was more than she had ever made before.

She practised nearly every day, and by a week later, she was getting the transformation right nine times out of ten, and Severus judged she was nearly ready to move on to another spell. It was hard not to force herself to practise all day, every day, but when she got tired and frustrated, her results tended to get worse again, so she began to limit herself to an hour every other day or so.

Perhaps two weeks after she'd written him, she got a reply from Marcus:

_Hey Calista,_

_You'll love flying, it's brilliant, trust me. I can show you some tricks, once you've got the hang of it. I can't believe you've never done it, it's amazing._

_I have ramie (crossed out) ramedy (crossed out) extra Transfig too. We'll do okay, we'll practise together._

_See ya,_

_Marcus F._

She chuckled a little to herself when she saw his crossouts. She'd written 'extra' in her letter too, but that was because she hated looking at the word 'remedial'. It was just as well that he hadn't known how to spell it - she still didn't want to look at it.

She got another owl that summer two, fairly late into it. She and her father had been sitting at the breakfast table when a large, pure-white owl swooped in through the open kitchen window, and dropped a roll of parchment on the table in front of her.

"You've been getting a lot of owls this summer," Severus commented, eyeing this new one curiously.

The owl was beautiful. It stood in the center of their table, holding its leg out. There was something somehow imperius in its posture. Calista scowled at it as she removed its letter.

When she had removed it, the owl fluttered over to the worktop, and began preening itself.

"Evidently, it's waiting for a reply," Severus observed, "Who is the letter from?"

Calista unrolled it, and her scowl deepened. "It's from stupid Olivia. What does  _she_  want?"

Her eyes roved across the parchment.

_Dear Calista,_

_I trust your summer is going well. Mother and I have just returned from Switzerland, which was absolutely lovely. We stayed at a posh resort, and we did loads of shopping. I've got some new perfume, I'm certain you'll love the scent - I'll let you try some._

_I know we don't always get along, but we must remember we are both in Slytherin, and it's best for us to stick together. I've seen you consorting with that Weasley boy, and you should know, his family is infamous for associating with the lower sorts. I mentioned it to Mother, and she is particularly concerned on your behalf._

_Speaking of my mother, she's very eager to meet you. She insists that you come to our townhouse for a visit. We'll be away again at the very end of the summer, but Mother says next week or the week after would be ideal. Please let us know when you'll be coming._

_Sincerely,_

_Olivia C. Avril_

"That must have been quite a letter," Severus said, "You rolled your eyes no less than six times while you were reading it."

"It's rubbish," she said, crumpling it up with a fierce expression on her face. She stood up and crossed the room, tossing the letter into the bin. Then she glared at the owl.

"Sod off," she told it, "I'm not writing back to her."

The owl hooted indignantly, and then ruffled its feathers and took off through the window.

Severus frowned. "What did she write, Calista?"

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head, "Nothing that matters. She's just being a prissy, miserable prat like always. I'm going to go read in my room, I'm not hungry anymore."

She cleared her breakfast dishes, and then swept into her room. He heard, distantly, a sigh and a thump as she flopped onto the bed.

Severus couldn't help his curiosity; what if the Avril girl was insulting his daughter, or trying to convince her to break school rules again? He rose from his chair, went to the rubbish bin, and plucked the crumpled letter from the top of it.

Very quietly, he flattened the letter out, so he could read it. He read it twice, but couldn't see what had upset her so much. He supposed it was precisely as she had said, though: Olivia Avril was being a prissy, miserable prat. He tossed the letter back into the bin.

Perhaps it was only the way she had referred to Percy Weasley, whom Severus knew Calista was becoming quite friendly with. He supposed that might have upset her, especially since he knew the Weasley boy was one of the friends she'd been writing to this summer.

Or perhaps she was upset because the Miss Avril made it so clear that her family had money, a lot more money than he had. He didn't think Calista cared for expensive clothes and perfume, but maybe he was wrong. Perhaps  _she_ wanted to go to Switzerland, but then, she didn't even seem to want to take the train to go to Miss Yaxley's house.

He frowned again, and shrugged. Perhaps it was best if he just stopped trying to understand the dynamics between teenage girls. It was beginning to give him a headache.

**(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)**

A week before term started, Calista had moved on to practising the spell that she now considered her arch nemesis, after Olivia. She frowned at a pencil that sat in the middle of the table. She thought she could feel it taunting her. She'd tried the spell a dozen times already, had hadn't managed it, even though she'd been mentally telling it what to do, and had even silently called it words she'd have gotten into trouble for saying out loud.

 _Come on, you arse,_  she thought furiously at it,  _Just flatten out, grow longer. Become a ruler. Don't forget the little hatch marks._

It clattered down on the table, and she looked at it. It closely resembled a ruler, actually, was probably her best attempt that day, but it still had a rubber on it. She sighed, and prepared to try again.

Severus strode into the kitchen, fully dressed, with his shoes in. "Are you nearly ready to go?" he asked.

They were going to Diagon Alley, to get her textbooks and school supplies, and after that would come the part Calista was nervous about.

"Yeah," she said, "I'm ready, I guess." She was dressed in green trousers and a yellow top, with her school robes over them. She was wearing her new shoes, too, the ones that she'd worn to visit the Malfoys at Christmas, because her trainers were getting too tight. She was also wearing the necklace that her aunt had given her for Christmas.

"It should only take us until perhaps ten o'clock to get everything you need for school," he reminded her, "And then Narcissa will meet us at Madam Malkin's. I'll bring everything else home, and you and she can spend the rest of the day together."

"Yeah," Calista said, and he could hear her apprehension, read it on her face.

"She cares about you, Calista, and she's a very nice woman. You'll be fine."

"I know," Calista said, "It's just… I dunno. What if she starts talking about  _her_? I don't want to talk about that."

"I don't think she will," Severus said, "But if she does, you can tell her you don't wish to discuss it; I think she'll understand."

"You could just stay with us," she said hopefully, even though she'd already tried this tactic the last time they'd spoken about it.

"It'll be good for you to have another adult you can talk to. Some day, I imagine there will be - ah, certain topics - that you won't want to discuss with me. And besides, I detest shopping."

"So do I," she pointed out, "And if you're talking about  _boys_ , I don't even like them like that, so I don't need to talk about it with anyone."

"Well, I'm certainly glad to hear that," he said, "Nevertheless, I think it's a good idea for you to try to get to know her. Give her a fair chance, Calista. She's not like her sister."

"I'll try," she said dubiously, and reached for his hand, so he could Apparate them both to the alley behind the Leaky Cauldron.

As soon as they had entered Diagon Alley proper, Calista dragged him to Flourish and Blott's, and she raced for the Magical Theory section, where, for once, she would actually be purchasing textbooks, for Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. She grabbed her textbooks first, and set them aside, before hunting through the rest of the titles eagerly.

She started when she felt a hand on her shoulder that wasn't the same familiar weight as her father's, and turned quickly around. She found herself looking at Emily's mother, Ferada, who was smiling warmly. She was wearing a nametag. Of course. Calista had forgotten that Mrs. Yaxley worked here.

"Hello, Calista. It's good to see you. I'm sorry you couldn't come and stay with us again this summer."

"Oh," Calista said, "Er, it's nice to see you too, Mrs. Yaxley. Yeah, it's just been… busy, you know?"

"Yes, Emily said you had family to visit, and that you were studying a lot. I just hope you found time to have a little fun too, right?"

"Yeah," she said, "Some. Er… say hello to Emily for me."

"Oh, I will, dear. Is your father around? I'd like to say hello to him before I have to get back to work."

Calista glanced around, and saw the top of his head above a bookshelf in the Potions section. "He's over there," she said, and Mrs. Yaxley smiled at her again before heading over to where Severus was reading the inside jacket of a thick tome.

All too soon, they were exiting the bookstore with her new books, and one that Severus had bought for himself, and the rest of the morning passed just as quickly. They visited the apothecary last, and Severus lingered there the way that she had in the Magical Theory section of the bookstore.

When it was nearly ten, they walked to Madam Malkin's, and Narcissa was waiting there, her tall form regal, somehow aloof-looking; but that changed, as soon as she caught sight of Severus and Calista.

"Severus," she said, smiling warmly, and clasping his hand in both of her own. "It's good to see you again." She turned her smile to Calista, and pulled the girl into a gentle hug. Calista noted that she smelled very pretty, some sort of posh perfume that Olivia would probably covet.

"Calista, darling, how are you? Did you get everything you needed for school?"

"Hi Aunt Narcissa," she said, and the words still felt awkward on her tongue, "Yes, I did, thanks."

"Draco's been asking after you," Narcissa told her, "He likes you quite a bit, you know."

Calista smiled, put slightly at ease. "I like him too," she said, "He's funny."

"We'll have to have you both over for Christmas again, of course," Narcissa said, glancing back at Severus with a fond smile. Then she tilted her head, touched Severus' arm. "Do you want to meet us back here, or shall I bring her to your home?"

"I'll come back," Severus said, for he told the Malfoys that he wasn't quite living at his old address. He stopped in from time to time, and owls sent there still reached him, but he didn't feel like explaining the whole situation, especially in front of Calista, who had never even been there. "What time do you think you'll be finished?"

Narcissa glanced at Calista. "A few hours," she said, "Perhaps four o'clock?"

Severus nodded. "I'll meet you back here, then. Calista…"

He looked at her, not quite certain what he was about to say. Calista supplied his words for him.

"I  _know_ , I'll behave."

He chuckled. "See that you do."

She watched him leave, feeling wistful. She actually liked her Aunt Narcissa all right, or what she knew of her, but it was a strange feeling to see him walking away, here.

"We shall have fun today, darling," Narcissa said, turning to face Calista again, "I have a few things planned. First things first though, you need new robes, stylish ones that will flatter you."

"I like regular robes," Calista said, uncertainly. Why was Narcissa bringing her here, instead of her father, as he had last year?

"Wait until you see yourself in what I'm thinking of," Narcissa said, and she put her hand to Calista's back, and guided her into the store.

As soon as they were inside, there was a flurry of activity. Before she knew what was happening, Calista was standing on the stool, and no less than three people were draping her with fabrics, pinning them, murmuring to Narcissa about seams and shirring and other things Calista had little notion of.

There were other students waiting to be fitted too, but Calista had somehow bypassed the line. She looked at the, and then at Narcissa, quizzically. Narcissa gave her a small, sly smile, but offered no explanation. She spoke to one of the women working on Calista, and the woman left and returned with several bolts of very pretty fabric, in different shades of green.

She proceeded to hold them up next to Calista, and she and Narcissa judged each in turn, nodded approval at some, and only made a small, dainty expression of distaste at others. Calista wished she could make her face do that; she only seemed to be able to scowl.

Then she was draped in black again, for her school robes, and Calista felt a sense of relief. This, at least, was a process she was familiar with.

Except, it wasn't quite the same as last time, either. Where before, they'd only trimmed and measured her robes, now the ladies were pinning and tucking, making them tight in some places, making incisions in others. She frowned, looked over their heads and out the windows. There were a lot of people close to her own age walking back and forth outside, most of them dragging parents along. Nearly everyone was in Diagon Alley this week, it seemed.

Narcissa began asking her questions, while the women worked, as if they weren't even there, and it was just the two of them in the sitting room at Malfoy Manor.

"Which electives have you chosen, Calista?"

"Uhm, Arithmancy," Calista said, "And Ancient Runes, and Care of Magical Creatures."

"Ah." Narcissa made her dainty play at disdain again, turning her delicate nose up slightly. "I never did care much for the outdoors."

"I want to see a unicorn," she offered, by way of explanation, "Kim Avery - she's going into seventh year - she told me you get to see one in fifth year."

Narcissa nodded approvingly, though it didn't seem as if the mention of unicorns had anything to do with it. "The Averys are a good family," Narcissa told her, "I knew Kimberly when she was quite small, though it's been quite a long time and I'm not certain if she'd remember."

"I like her," Calista said, "Even though she calls me 'Snapelet' sometimes, which is  _really_  annoying."

The corner of Narcissa's mouth lifted almost imperceptibly. "Yes, well, I don't think anyone will call you that anymore, when we're finished. You're going to be lovely, you'll see."

Calista tried hard to suppress the rude expression that she could feel coming to her face, because she knew Narcissa was being kind and she shouldn't appear ungrateful. It was just that 'lovely' was not a word she associated with herself, and she didn't see how a few tight, uncomfortable sets of new robes would change that.

"Which colours do you favour, Calista?" Narcissa asked her thoughtfully.

"Oh. Er, I like green just fine," she said, because she was draped in it currently, "My favourite is yellow… I actually named my cat after it."

Narcissa gestured to a woman that was holding a length of shiny green material up to Calista's cheek, and the woman disappeared, only to re-emerge from the back with a bolt of silky yellow fabric.

"It… it's funny, my dad teases me, because my cat's grey, but I called him Yellow anyway. I was small, I just picked something I liked."

"How do you like your hair?" Narcissa asked her, "Long, or short?"

Olivia had cut it slightly longer than her chin last year, but it had grown quickly, was nearly to the middle of her back again. Calista mostly just left it alone, although some days, like today, she had put a clip in it, one of the ones her father had gotten her when they'd gone to Malfoy Manor for Christmas.

"Uhm," Calista said, "I don't know. Just… normal, I guess. Like this."

"I see." The assistants stepped away from Calista, and Narcissa surveyed the results with a small frown. Then, she nodded, and her expression warmed some. "Step down, darling, and take a look. Be careful."

Narcissa held her hand out, and after a brief hesitation, Calista took it. Her fingers were cold and small, delicate. She allowed Narcissa to help her off the stool, stepping over the swaths of fabric that still littered the ground around her, and followed Narcissa over to a full-length mirror.

She was wearing her school robes again - or was she? She tilted her head, looking at her reflection, but not wanting to look at her face. The robes were… well, they looked a bit like a dress, actually. Like something Olivia would wear. They were taken in from her shoulders to her hips, and she could see little coloured dots where pins marked seams that contoured along the sides of her body. The bottom part was more like a skirt, that flowed from her hips down to the floor, and there were places in between the folds where a pretty, dark green fabric peeked out. The sleeves were tight at the top too, but tapered outwards beginning at her elbows, and the green fabric peeked out between those folds, too, so that by the time the sleeves reached the ends of her wrists, they were full, and mixed green and black. The only thing that differentiated these new robes from an actual dress was the fact that it was open in the front.

"We'll have them make a pretty green blouse to wear underneath," Narcissa said, "and a skirt. Black, I think. But what do you think? Stylish, yes?"

Calista blinked, looked up at Narcissa. "These are… really different. Uhm, nice-looking. But.. don't they have to be plain, for school?"

Narcissa arched her eyebrows delicately. "These are plain. Enough. Don't other girls in your class wear things like this?"

Well, Olivia did, but Olivia always did whatever she wanted.

"I guess so," she answered, and Narcissa nodded, satisfied. "I never wore plain robes," she said, "And the only time I was reprimanded was when I wore a set that was silver, and - "

She smiles slyly, motioned to her breastbone. "Cut down to here. It was in my sixth year; I was trying to get Lucius' attention. Little did I know, I already had it. He told me, much later, that he'd noticed me since fourth year."

Calista wasn't sure how to respond, but she was spared having to, when one of the women from the shop came over, and held up a silvery button against the front of the robes. Narcissa considered, asked if there were any others to choose from. When the woman came back, she opened a small wooden box. Narcissa looked through, and picked two different ones. She held them out, one in each palm, and looked at Calista.

"What do we think, darling? These ones are very classic, but I'm partial to the ones with the snakes, too."

Calista peered at the small silver buttons that Narcissa held. One was tiny, a plain silver ball-shape that looked like it would be very difficult for clumsy fingers to fasten. The other was in the shape of a tiny snake, coiled up into a tight spiral. Only the head stuck out, a delicate diamond-shape. They were interesting-looking; more importantly, they looked easier to button.

"I like the snakes," she said, and Narcissa nodded, cutting an impatient look at the woman holding the button-box.

"Three sets of these, then, with the snake buttons. These ones, and another set with the lighter green fabric we liked in place of this," she fingered a fold of the dark green material at Calista's wrist. "Make the third set all black."

They returned Calista to the stool, eased her out of the robes, and took them away. She thought with relief that she was done, and started to reach for her old cloak, but then the women were back, with the yellow fabric, and more of the same green ones they'd had before, and even some swatches of blues, in all sorts of shades.

While they pinned and tucked and folded and fussed, Calista looked over them uncomfortably, wondering when they'd finally be done. At least she had Narcissa to talk to; she answered more questions, everything from what her favourite things to study in school were to what she wanted to do after Hogwarts - she wasn't certain, yet - to who her friends were at school, and what they liked to do in between classes.

She knew instinctively not to mention Percy Weasley to Narcissa, so she'd told her about Emily and Marcus Flint, and more about Kim Avery and her friends.

"There's another girl I met too," Calista ventured, "Dad said she was… uhm, my cousin. Her name's Tonks."

Narcissa's nose went up again, and Calista knew she'd said the wrong thing. She looked, suddenly, as if a very unpleasant smell had filled the store, but Calista sniffed experimentally, and didn't smell anything.

"Nymphadora," Narcissa said, "My sister Andromeda's child. A Black in name only, trust me on that. You'd do well to steer clear of her, Calista. She's not like you or I. Surely your father told you that?"

Calista suppressed a flash of annoyance; what had she expected? Her father had told her as much, that the Malfoys didn't approve of that branch of their family.

"Er, yeah he did say," was all she said to Narcissa. She was glad she hadn't mentioned Percy. "She seemed okay, that's all."

"Well, you don't need to be friends with people who are only 'okay', do you? You're a Black, and you should be proud of your lineage."

"I'm proud of being a Snape," she said, a bit crossly.

"Well, of course you are, darling. Your father is a good man. I'm only advising you to remember that you come from an  _old_  family, yes? You'll want to keep that in mind when a boy catches your eye, too."

"I don't care about boys," she said, knowing she was scowling and not quite willing to stop.

Narcissa must have attributed her sour expression to the topic of boys alone, because she smiled loftily. "Soon enough, you will," she said knowingly.

Calista was measured for three more sets of robes, one in the same dark green that accented her new school robes, one in a lighter, spring-like green, and one in a midnight blue shade that had a little bit of a sheen to it. They were all cut similarly to her school robes, but each one was slightly unique. The light green ones only had elbow-length sleeves, and the dark blue robes had a higher neckline, and were trimmed with delicate black lace. Calista wasn't sure how she felt about them. They looked nice, she guessed, objectively, but she wasn't used to them. And anyway, what was the point, when she still had all that stringy hair and a big nose?

Finally, Calista was guided off the stool and brought to the mirror a final time. Like before, she made a point of not looking closely at her face.

Narcissa stood behind her shoulder, eyeing this final set of robes up and down. They were a pretty, bright yellow, and the material felt like silk - and knowing Narcissa, Calista thought, it probably was. Like the others, they fit snugly at the torso, but these had a lower, more open neckline with scalloped edges, and because the material was so much lighter than all the others, the skirt was quite flowy and delicate-looking. Even Calista had to admit, they were very pretty robes, or they would be, once they were all sewn together.

They were also, she knew, very expensive. Narcissa was saying something now about gold thread and pearl buttons to the women that worked at the store.

Calista shifted, trying to catch Narcissa's eye. In the process, she caught the reflection of her own face, scowled at it.

"Aunt Narcissa," Calists said quietly, "This is really nice, but I don't think I need fancy robes like this." The button box had come back, and Calista didn't even want to think about how expensive the ones Narcissa was eyeing had to be.

"We're almost finished, Calista. We'll talk afterwards, all right?"

Calista frowned, while Narcissa made the final button selections, and proceeded to the cashier to pay. The total made the blood drain from Calista's face. She had never heard of anyone spending so much money on clothes.

She turned back to Calista, ushering her out of the shop. "We'll come back later to pick everything up," she said, "I can't wait to see how you look, especially in those yellow dress robes. It is a nice colour on you, although I think I prefer green."

"Aunt Narcissa," Calista tried again, "I really don't need all that…"

"No, you don't  _need_  it," Narcissa said, "But I want you to have it. You're my only niece," and here Calista was reminded, darkly, of Narcissa's comments about the girl Tonks, "And I don't have a daughter, you know."

"Uhm. Well, thank you, then," Calista said, because she knew she was supposed to. She still wasn't sure how she felt about the robes. They were all very fancy, in her opinion, and she was afraid she'd feel foolish in them.

If Calista had thought that the robe shop was awkward, however, then she was ill-prepared for the next place Narcissa brought her. It was all the way at the end of Diagon Alley, a tiny shop with gauzy pink and white curtains in the windows, and gold trim all around. The window showed a mannequin sitting in a brass chair, wearing an elegant dressing-gown.

 _More clothes?_ Calista thought incredulously, but once she had gone inside, and seen what was really in the store, she wished it  _had_ been another robe shop. The store was full of ladies' underthings, in all sorts of pretty, feminine colours. Calista felt herself blush. Why were they here? It couldn't be for her, she had regular things that worked just fine…

Except, to her horror, they  _were_  here for her. Narcissa matter-of-factly picked out several brightly coloured panties that were definitely too small for Narcissa to wear. At least, thankfully, they were more or less normal-looking, except for the colours; there were all sorts of things in here that were too lacy, too shiny, and too tiny for Calista to even look at without wanting to faint.

The worst, however, came when Narcissa had the salesgirl measure Calista around the chest for what she called a training bra. It was like a much smaller version of what Calista knew women wore underneath their tops, and just standing in the section where they were all displayed while she was measured was making her uncomfortable.

When the salesgirl disappeared to try and find something in the correct size, Narcissa put her hand to the side of Calista's face, and stroked her cheek lightly with her thumb. "You look positively mortified," she said, with a soft chuckle. "It's all right, darling. It's very normal to shop in a place like this, you know. You're a young lady, now."

"I don't need a… a bra thing," Calista managed, wishing she could run outside, down the street, and hide in the bookstore again.

"Maybe not quite yet," Narcissa said, "But it's best to get used to wearing one a little while before you  _need_  it, you see?"

She might have said more, but then the salesgirl was back, holding several hangers that each contained one of the miniature-looking bras in the correct size, and in several different colours. Narcissa picked out a white one and a yellow one, and then several pairs of tights in various colours, too.

She held a pair of yellow tights out to Calista. "Look, these are soft - they should be comfortable."

Calista fingered the material; it was quite soft. She wondered if Narcissa had caught her scratching at her legs at Christmas, in the tights her father had bought. She nodded, because in this store, it was all she could manage. This was a million times worse than reading the embarrassing books her father had bought her a couple of summers ago, about how her body was going to change, and all of that. At least she'd been alone when she read those.

All of the things Narcissa bought were wrapped in delicate tissue, and placed in a white bag with a heart on it. Calista was glad that Narcissa carried it, because she would have rather died than walk around Diagon Alley with it.

They went to buy shoes, next, and Narcissa helped her pick out - which was a kind way of saying that Narcissa picked and Calista nodded wordlessly - two pairs of pretty leather flats, one white and one black. The leather was soft, so at least they were comfortable. Narcissa had asked her if she'd wanted to try on another pair, one that had a slight high heel to them, but Calista had shaken her head rapidly.

When they were finished with shoes, Narcissa checked her wristwatch. "We only have two hours before your father's coming to meet us - hasn't the day flown by?"

"Well… except for that underwear store," Calista said, and Narcissa laughed.

"There's something else I'd like to do… I think we may have just enough time, but it's quite a distance from here. Are you comfortable being Apparated?"

"Yeah," Calista said, "But really Aunt Narcissa, you don't have to buy me anything else. I think I have more clothes now than the rest of the girls in my House put together."

Narcissa smiled, and there was something secretive about it. "It's not clothes; it's not even a store. Come, take my hand."

Calista reached for the small, cool, fingers again. She was surprised that they were starting to feel familiar already.

They Apparated in a small, dark alley; Narcissa ushered her out hurriedly, and they emerged onto a busy city street. Calista supposed they were still in London somewhere, but it was not a street she recognised. They walked along it for perhaps a block and a half, before Narcissa stopped in front of a small, white building with pink curtains in the windows.

For a minute, Calista was afraid they were at another underwear store, but when Narcissa guided her inside, she saw that it was a salon. There was one young woman having her hair cut, and another girl not much older than Calista having paint - Calista supposed it was makeup - put on her face. Three other women were waiting, paging through old issues of  _Siren Sorceress_.

The women in the salon must have known Narcissa too, because she called for one of the hairdressers, and Calista was settled into a chair right away. But then perhaps they didn't know her that well, because the woman was asking how Narcissa wanted her daughter's hair cut.

"Calista, darling, what do we think? Short, or long?"

"Er. I dunno."

Narcissa considered for a moment, and then the hairstylist spoke up again.

"What if we give her layers?" she suggested, and Calista caught a faint accent; was it French? "Some long, and some short." She gestured to Calista's chin, and then to her shoulders. "It will give her more volume, yes?"

"Yes, I think that will work," Narcissa said, and the woman drew her wand, reached for a comb. Evidently, this was a salon for witches only then, Calista realised, if there weren't any scissors. She couldn't help but tense her shoulders, a little, when the woman pointed the wand at the back of her head, but then she met Narcissa's eyes in the mirror, and her aunt smiled encouragingly, and Calista knew that Narcissa meant well, had been very generous and kind to her all day, even if Calista didn't really  _want_  all those new clothes, so she smiled back, and let the woman cut her hair.

Halfway through, Narcissa tilted her head, eyeing Calista thoughtfully. "Have you ever considered wearing your hair curly?" she asked, "Like your mother's?"

The woman cutting her hair glanced up, but Narcissa didn't notice. Evidently, she really had thought Calista was Narcissa's daughter. Narcissa hadn't bothered to correct her, though Calista suspected it was because Narcissa didn't think the hairstylist was important enough to matter.

"No," Calista said quickly, "I don't… I don't want to look like her." She felt her heart racing at the mere mention of her; imagine if she had to look at herself in the mirror and see hair like her mother's, too. It was bad enough that she was beginning to see, after all the mirrors she'd been forced in front of today, that Narcissa was right, that she did have the forehead, the cheekbones, of her mother. It was easier to think of them as being like Narcissa's, though, so that's what she tried to do.

"I think it would suit you," Narcissa said, "But it's all right if you don't want to." She seemed to realise that she had upset Calista somehow.

"Why don't we try some cosmetics on you?" she suggested, perhaps thinking this would be a peace offering. "You're a bit too young to wear them all the time, but today is a special occasion, a girls' day, hm?"

She glanced over at the woman who had first checked them in, and sure enough, she sent for another stylist, a woman who was about to call one of the women from the waiting area. She flushed slightly, and came over to Calista and Narcissa instead. She studied the young girl's face for a moment, which made Calista highly uncomfortable. Then she returned, with a box full of the sorts of things that Olivia kept on the shelf in her wardrobe, lipsticks and eye paints, and things Calista didn't even know the name of.

She didn't like having two strange women so close to her, one of them fussing with her hair, and the other one putting strange-smelling stuff on her face, but at least her view of the mirror was blocked now, and she didn't have to look at herself anymore.

"Goodness, what's wrong with you?" Narcissa snapped at one of them, "Not red; she's thirteen. Give her some of that soft pink, there."

She must have been talking about lipstick, because that was what the woman came at her with, now. It smelled funny, although she couldn't be sure it wasn't the woman, she supposed.

"So, who are some of the other girls in your class?" Narcissa asked her, as if she hadn't just been cross with one of the women working on Calista, "You mentioned Emily Yaxley. Who else is there?"

"Portia MacNair," Calista said, "And Olivia Avril. And me. There's just four of us in Slytherin from our year. There's seven in the year behind me, though."

"And what do you think of them?" There was something expectant in her tone; Calista suspected Narcissa was familiar with their families, as well.

"Portia's… I dunno, she's… I don't talk to her much, I guess. She's allergic, or something, she's always sniffling. And I used to be friends with Olivia, but…"

She trailed off, not certain how much she should tell Narcissa.

"MacNair… her father's an executioner, you know, for magical creatures that have gone out of control. Lucius is somewhat friendly with him, but I don't like to have him in my house, to tell you the truth. He curses a lot, and he's always so  _sweaty_."

Calista chuckled at that. She could imagine him.

"What did you say the other girl's surname was?"

"Avril," Calista said, "She's always going on and on about how well-connected her family is, and how she and her mother go to all these posh stores and things…"

Narcissa laughed, and it was distinctly derisive. "Oh, is she now? I don't know who her mother is, but I know of Thomas Avril. He works on the Floo Network, did you know? He's always putting on airs, trying to get on good terms with Lucius at work, but Lucius says he's a bore. He was on trial a few years ago for taking bribes to set up unauthorised access points. If his family has any money, it's either the wife's or it's leftover from what he managed to hide from the Ministry from taking bribes. Well-connected, indeed. Do you know her mother's name?"

"No, I don't," said Calista, who felt as if she'd just won the lottery. "But she keeps asking Olivia to invite me over for a visit. I don't want to go, because Olivia's so smarmy. Besides, she's always trying to get me in trouble - you know last year, she convinced me to brew  _Amortentia_  for her, and then she used it on a fifth-year boy?"

She could hear Narcissa's indrawn breath behind her. She winced as the woman doing her makeup nearly poked her in the eye.

"Oh, Calista. You're far too young to meddle in any of that. Did your father find out? I imagine he must have been absolutely livid."

"Yeah," she said, "I told him, when I realised what she'd done. She told me it was for her parents, but obviously that turned out not to be true. I had to tell him, so he could give Colin - that's the boy - the antidote. That's the reason I have to take extra potions lessons now."

"Well, at least it was him and not the Headmaster who found out first. I can only imagine what that foolish old man would have done - used it as an excuse to try and expel you, perhaps. He's prejudiced against the old families. Don't worry, though, Lucius is on the Board of Governors, he'd never get away with it."

"He is?" She would have to remember that, perhaps she could appeal to him if she ever managed to get herself into trouble again -  _not_  that she was planning on it, but trouble seemed to find her, sometimes.

"Oh, yes. He's been trying to get them to appoint your father to the Dark Arts position for ages, but that miserable old coot Dumbledore keeps refusing, out of spite, I'd say."

This was very interesting news to Calista, but she didn't have a chance to ask more about it, because the stylists were finished. She looked down at her lap. She didn't want to see what she looked like, now. She was afraid she'd look even worse, with all this silly paint on her, and it felt like they'd cut off a lot of her hair. It felt so light that she reached up to make sure it was still there. The longest parts of it she could feel seemed to be a bit shorter than shoulder-length.

Narcissa was at her side, her hands on Calista's shoulders. "Oh, darling, you look lovely, just as I said you would. Go on, look, don't be nervous."

She braced herself, prepared to try and hide her scowl, since Narcissa had undoubtedly spent a lot of money on this. She looked up, and blinked at herself in surprise, waiting for the illusion to fade.

She looked… well, she wasn't as pretty as Olivia or Endria, but she looked a lot better, she had to admit. Her hair did have a lot more volume; it bounced when she turned her head. There was a longer layer, that just grazed her shoulders, and a shorter layer that hit at her chin, though shorter pieces made up a sort of choppy fringe at one side of her face. The top layer was parted over to the side, and one of the women, the one that had done her hair, came over and fastened a small jeweled clip into it.

Her face, though. There was soft green shadow around her eyes, and they were outlined in a darker green. Her cheeks had a bit of colour on them, too, and her thin lips were a pearly, delicate pink. She didn't think she looked like herself at all. She blinked again. There was something she didn't like… something that was bothering her. She liked the green around her eyes, actually - she thought it made her nose look a bit smaller, although that may have been only wishful thinking, but… and then she had it. The paint on her cheeks made her cheekbones look even higher, made her look older. It made her look like Bellatrix.

"I think… I don't know about all this," she said quietly, waving her hand in front of her face.

"I know, you're a bit too young for all that, but I just wanted to show you, you are a lovely girl if you want to be. Perhaps in a year or two, we can find some better colours for you. What do you think of your hair, now?"

Calista turned her head to one side, and then the other. Her hair moved gently along with her, shiny and thick-looking. She could barely believe it was still her same hair; it was even nicer than the time Olivia had styled it for her.

"It's really nice," she admitted. "Thank you, Aunt Narcissa."

Narcissa smiled, and then checked her watch. "It's time to go back and pick up your robes. Perhaps… hm, perhaps we should smudge some of those cosmetics off before we see your father, hm? I'm not certain he'd want to see his little girl looking so grown-up all of a sudden."

"I'm not little," Calista said automatically, but she was uncomfortable in the makeup anyway, so she allowed Narcissa to wipe most of it off with a cloth one of the stylists handed her. Besides, she had a feeling that her aunt was right; she'd never asked, but somehow she doubted that she'd be allowed to wear makeup to school.

When all of it was gone, except for a bit of the green around her eyes, Narcissa settled the bill for another total that made Calista uncomfortable, and then she took the girl's hand, and led her back to the same place they'd Apparated to. She took Narcissa's hand again, and they returned to Diagon Alley. Somehow, when they walked down the street, they were still holding hands. By the time Calista realised it, she thought it would have been awkward to pull hers back, so she let it stay.

By the time they arrived to pick up Calista's new robes, Severus was already standing outside of Madam Malkin's waiting for them. He looked at Calista, and she was worried he might say something about the little bit of eye makeup she still had on, but all he said was, "Did you have a nice day?"

"I think we did," Narcissa said, and looked down at Calista for confirmation, releasing her hand as she did so. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yeah," Calista said, and she found that, despite her embarrassment over the one store and all the money Narcissa had spent on her, she had actually enjoyed talking to her aunt all day. "Yeah, we did."

Severus looked pleased at this; Calista would have sworn his smile was one of relief, but she didn't have time to study it long, because Narcissa was ushering her back inside to look at all of her new things.

The robes were all finished, and they were quite lovely. The black ones all had the silver snake buttons, which even Calista had to admit looked really cool. There were several blouses, too, and a couple of pairs of dressy-looking trousers, and skirts of varying length. She hadn't expected all that.

Neither had Severus, apparently. "Narcissa, that's too-," he'd started to say, but she'd stopped him with a look.

"Calista is my only niece," she repeated, "I must insist that I be allowed to dress her up if I choose to." She shifted her gaze, and smiled slyly at Calista, as if they were sharing a secret. "Besides, she needs to have pretty new robes to go with her lovely new hair, yes?"

Severus merely looked bewildered, as he wordlessly took the hangers Narcissa handed him. Each garment was wrapped in its own bag, on a wooden hanger with  _M.M._  engraved on the top. Calista supposed they must have been heavy, all that many things. She breathed a sigh of relief when Narcissa handled the white bag, the one with all the brightly coloured underthings in it, directly to her.

She followed her father and her aunt out of the store, and she noticed that Narcissa put her hand on Severus' arm affectionately. He turned his head, and said something softly to her; Calista could read the form of the words 'thank you' on his lips. She wondered if this day had really been all Narcissa's idea, after all.

Narcissa gave them each another hug, and Calista another kiss on the cheek, ran an affectionate hand through her hair.

"Enjoy the last few days of summer. I hope your classes go well - do write me, and let me know what all the other girls think of your new robes, hm, darling? We shall see you at Christmas, if not sooner. Wear the blue robes - I want to see them on you now that they're finished."

"Er, okay," Calista said, agreeing to both parts of her well-meant demands at once. "I… thank you again."

Narcissa waved, and then Disapparated.

Calista looked up at her father; she couldn't read his expression.

"I  _never_  want to set foot in another clothing store again," she said.

He smirked, and reached for her hand. "Don't tell your aunt that. I think she's found a new hobby."

"You're not funny," she told him, for the third time that summer.


End file.
